SAN DIEGO, May 10, 2026, 08:03 PDT
Realty Income Corporation has launched a fresh stock-sale program that may allow the real estate investment trust to sell as many as 150 million common shares gradually, opening a new avenue for funding right after lifting its 2026 investment forecast. The company’s Form 8-K shows the sales agreement was entered on May 7 and signed in a filing dated May 8.
This is significant for Realty Income: its whole growth strategy depends on reliable capital. The firm snaps up property and credit assets, pulls in rent or interest, and hands out monthly dividends. To keep it going, Realty Income sometimes turns to stock sales — though raising cash this way can leave current shareholders worse off if shares are issued cheaply.
Realty Income now has an at-the-market, or ATM, program in place, enabling it to sell shares via banks and broker-dealers at current market prices, negotiated rates, block trades, or any other permitted approach. REITs frequently tap ATM programs when they want to raise equity in smaller increments instead of launching a single big issuance.
The filing leaves the door open for Realty Income to enter forward sale agreements. In these deals, banks could borrow and sell the shares right away, but Realty Income would get the cash only if the transaction is physically settled. The company listed possible uses for the proceeds: paying down debt, buying back or hedging shares, making acquisitions, funding development, redevelopment, business combinations, or property upgrades.
Just two days after Realty Income announced first-quarter net income available to common stockholders at $311.8 million, or 33 cents per share, the filing dropped. Adjusted funds from operations (AFFO)—the cash-flow figure REIT watchers track—climbed 6.6% to $1.13 a share. The company put $2.8 billion to work over the quarter, $2.6 billion of that on a pro-rata basis.
Realty Income bumped its 2026 AFFO outlook, now expecting $4.41 to $4.44 a share, and boosted this year’s investment target to $9.5 billion, up from $8 billion. Chief Executive Sumit Roy called the company’s “pipeline very active,” citing private capital as offering “deep and stable pockets of capital.” PR Newswire
This private-capital move is hardly negligible. Back in March, Reuters said Apollo Global Management had put up $1 billion for a 49% stake in a fresh joint venture—one that’s set to control around 500 single-tenant retail sites, with Realty Income taking on portfolio management.
The company reported holding stakes in 15,571 properties as of the end of March, with leases spread among 1,786 clients spanning 92 industries. Portfolio occupancy came in at 98.9%. Average lease terms were about 8.7 years. Most assets are under long-term net leases, meaning tenants typically handle expenses like taxes, insurance, and upkeep.
Still, there’s an obvious risk here. Issuing the entire 150 million shares would bump Realty Income’s share count up by roughly 16.1%, calculated off the 932.5 million common shares the company had outstanding as of April 30, according to its quarterly filing and Reuters math. The agreement gives Realty Income the option—it doesn’t force them to sell any specific number of shares.
Realty Income’s equity financing streak was in motion well before this. The company’s quarterly filing put 20.8 million shares under forward-sale agreements as of March 31, amounting to roughly $1.2 billion in anticipated net proceeds. In its May 8 filing, Realty also disclosed that it ended a previous ATM program after selling 19,897,223 shares.
Investors will see their first uninterrupted trading response following the weekend. Realty Income finished Friday at $61.92. NNN REIT ended the week at $44.36, while Agree Realty wrapped up at $76.22, according to market data.
For Realty Income, the immediate issue is whether it can keep snapping up assets at yields that outpace its funding costs—without upsetting the dividend equation investors depend on. In the first quarter, those new investments were pulling in a 7.1% cash yield. Leverage, measured by net debt to annualized pro forma adjusted EBITDAre, sat at 5.2x.
