First 2 weeks of 2026

The first two weeks of the year are now behind us. We’ve had a steady stream of dividends, and we’ve also made a few adjustments to our portfolio. Let’s start by looking at the dividends.
The first dividend we received was a DRIP from Main Street Capital. The official payment date was at the end of last year, but DRIP settlements usually take a few days. We received 1 new share and 14,72 €.

Other dividends during the first week were:

• 0,62 € from Iron Mountain
• 17,15 € from Restaurant Brands
• 16,40 € from Dynex Capital
• 18,38 € from Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure 

Total dividends for the first week came to 119,17 €. A solid start to the year.

Our second week began with a dividend from Cibus Nordic. We received 9,32 € at the beginning of the week. The rest of the dividends were:

• 5,09 € from returns of withheld taxes
• 2,34 € from Apple Hospitality REIT
• 7,37 € from Northland Power Inc
• 19,34 € from Exchange Income
• 30,61 € from Realty Income
• 83,93 € from Blue Owl Capital
• 6,73 € from Keurig Dr Pepper

Total dividends for the second week were 155,41 €. Altogether, we’ve collected 323,38 € so far. It seems the first month of the year will be a bit weaker than last year. One reason is that Saratoga Investment changed its dividend schedule from quarterly to monthly. This lowered our January income but strengthened February and March. Another change came from Whitestone REIT, which shifted from monthly to quarterly payments.

Because of Whitestone’s schedule change, we took a closer look at the company. It hasn’t been particularly compelling for a long time. Management hasn’t performed well, and there have been ongoing speculations about replacing them. Activist investors have even made an offer to buy the company. The only real reason to hold the stock was the potential buyout, so we decided to sell and replace it with another quarterly payer. Selling Whitestone resulted in a profit of roughly 1,000 €. We reinvested the proceeds into Ares Capital Corp, increasing our annual dividend income by about 200 €.

We started making purchases right after the new year and have already completed several transactions. Some of them are a bit speculative, but most were made to strengthen our dividend income. In addition to the Ares Capital purchase, the transactions made during these two weeks were:

• 3,9625 shares of Transcontinental @23,07886 CAD
• 1,3036 shares of Ares Capital @20,88064 USD
• 6,9571 shares of Golub Capital BDC @13,94978 USD
• 18 shares of Neste @20,55333 €
• 23,7845 shares of Signify N.V @21,03261 €
• 1,8688 shares of Restaurant Brands @92,76045 CAD
• 4,3736 shares of Blue Owl Capital @12,70118 USD
• 4 shares of Realty Income @59,19 USD
• 2,8248 shares of Apple Hospitality REIT @12,5139 USD
• 6,8497 shares of Dynex Capital @14,61524 USD

We estimate that these purchases will increase our 2026 dividend income by 64,50 €. A nice boost, especially considering it comes on top of the 200 € increase from switching Whitestone to Ares Capital.