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Strategies & Market Trends : Meditrust NYSE: MT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Holewinski who wrote (172)	2/21/2000 2:06:00 PM
From: M. Frank Greiffenstein	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 233

They have not elimianted the dividend, just postponed it to December. This is perfectly legal, REIT law does not require a specific schedule of dividends. With the recent change in REIT law, payouts have been reduced from 95% of profits to 90%. DocStone

To: Charles Holewinski who wrote (172)	2/21/2000 2:48:00 PM
From: Mr. Sunshine	Respond to of 233

Charles, Interest is an expense, but payment of principal is not. MT can not count prepayment of principal as an expense to reduce earnings in order to not pay a dividend. They probably will take numerous write-downs, but the extent of these write downs is anyone's guess. Their statement earlier this year was that they could cut the dividend as much as 50% and still qualify for REIT status.