Barclays downgrades W.P. Carey to Underweight into ‘heaviest lifting’

Barclays downgraded W.P. Carey (WPC) to Underweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $59, up from $56, following a transfer of analysts. The company has taken steps to streamline, but “rarely in recent memory have these sorts of situations – shrink, shed, simplify, establish a new FFO baseline, etc. – gone well during the period of heaviest lifting,” the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says that if W.P. Carey is able to prove to the market it has established a new funds from operations baseline from which to grow the stock could re-rate higher, but “we don’t believe we’re there yet.”