AVB Stock Is Now VMRK: Dividend, Core FFO and the EQR Merger

Is AVB the same as VMRK? What actually happened

Yes in effect, with a twist in the plumbing. The merger agreement of May 20, 2026 had Equity Residential issue its shares to AvalonBay holders, so Equity Residential, the company with CIK 906107, is the one still listed. It changed its name to Vivmark Residential when the merger closed. The closing 8-K describes AvalonBay merging into a subsidiary that was then merged into ERP Operating Limited Partnership, which is why AvalonBay's Form 15 is signed by “ERP Operating Limited Partnership, as ultimate successor by merger to AvalonBay Communities, Inc.” AvalonBay holders approved the deal on August 12: 126,457,745 votes for, 51,666 against and 772,383 abstaining, against 141,875,623 shares outstanding (89.1% for, our arithmetic). The NYSE halted AVB before the open on August 17, and VMRK began trading the next morning.

For the Equity Residential side of the same deal, with its own FFO history, markets and debt, see our page on EQR, now VMRK. This page is the AvalonBay holder's view.

The dividend: $1.78 then, $1.962 now per old share

AvalonBay raised its quarterly dividend 1.7% to $1.78 for the first quarter of 2026 and held it there for the second. The merger agreement capped it at that rate until closing. The new company's rate is Equity Residential's: the proxy statement says the combined company is expected to pay an initial annualized dividend of $2.81, “which is higher than AvalonBay’s current dividend yield”. The September declaration is $0.7025, the $2.81 annual rate.

Our arithmetic from the closing 8-K, the September 24 press release and the Q2 2026 10-Q. The October 16 payment date is a scheduled date from the release; no SEC filing confirms payment, and the declaration itself was not filed on an 8-K that we could find on EDGAR as of October 19, 2026.

Why the old-share view matters: the headline dividend per VMRK share ($0.7025) looks much smaller than $1.78, but a holder owns 2.793 times as many shares. The yield-style comparison that counts is dividend per old share, which went up 10.2% at closing.

Coverage: AvalonBay paid out about 62% of Core FFO; the new rate is higher

AvalonBay's own metric is Core FFO. It removes items AvalonBay treats as non-core from FFO, such as legal settlements and gains or losses on technology investments. Over six quarters the $1.75 to $1.78 dividend ran between 61.4% and 63.6% of Core FFO.

Sources: AvalonBay earnings releases (8-K Exhibit 99.1) for Q3 2025 to Q2 2026, with Q1 and Q2 2025 from the prior-year columns of the 2026 releases; dividends from AvalonBay's XBRL data and 10-Q. For full years, dividends of $6.80 in 2024 and $7.00 in 2025 were 61.8% and 62.3% of Core FFO of $11.01 and $11.24 (our arithmetic), and first-half 2026 dividends of $3.56 were 62.6% of $5.69.

Q3 2025's FFO of $3.01 is above Core FFO of $2.75 because FFO included gains that AvalonBay treats as non-core, so that quarter's 58.1% on FFO is flattered. The merger changes the denominator. Equity Residential's Q2 2026 Normalized FFO was $1.02 and its dividend $0.7025, 68.9% (our arithmetic). Mapped onto one old AVB share:

Read it as: per share, the two companies earned about the same (Equity Residential's Normalized FFO was 0.4% below AvalonBay's Core FFO on this basis, our arithmetic), so the old AVB holder moved to a dividend about 10% higher on about the same earnings, which means a payout ratio about 6.7 points higher. That is not an alarm; Equity Residential has run a Normalized FFO payout of roughly 67% to 73% in our EQR page. It is a smaller cushion than AvalonBay's. Normalized FFO and Core FFO are each company's definition, and no combined-company FFO guidance exists: AvalonBay suspended its EPS, FFO and Core FFO outlook on July 22, and Equity Residential withdrew its own.

AvalonBay's last guidance was February's full-year Core FFO range of $11.00 to $11.50. First-half Core FFO was $5.69, and the old annualized dividend of $7.12 was 63.3% of that range's midpoint of $11.25 (our arithmetic).

What the last AvalonBay quarter showed

Q2 2026 Core FFO of $2.86 beat the April midpoint of $2.77 by $0.09; the release attributes $0.09 of the variance to same store NOI, and says about $0.03 of the lower operating expenses is timing, expected to be incurred in the second half. Same store residential revenue rose 1.6% to $709.6 million, expenses 2.9% and NOI 1.0%. The company narrowed its full-year same store revenue outlook to 1.1% to 2.1% from 0.4% to 2.4%. The map below shows where that revenue came from.

Four coastal regions (Southern and Northern California, New York/New Jersey and Boston) produced 72.0% of same store revenue (our arithmetic). Northern California had the strongest like-term effective rent change, 7.3% in Q2 and 8.3% in July; Denver the weakest, minus 3.3% and minus 4.3%. The portfolio at June 30, 2026 was 322 communities with 99,072 apartment homes, plus 27 communities under construction with 9,064 homes at an estimated $3.526 billion, which became part of a combined company with more than 184,000 apartments and over $4.4 billion of active development. On September 15 Vivmark said net effective asking rents on the combined same store pool were up 3.6% year on year and physical occupancy was 95.7% as of September 11.

Debt: $9.1 billion, all of it now at ERP Operating Partnership

AvalonBay ended June 30, 2026 with $9,079.1 million of principal debt at a weighted 3.7%: $7,450.0 million of fixed unsecured debt (including a $550.0 million term loan swapped to 4.44%), $713.0 million of mortgages and $916.1 million of commercial paper, with nothing drawn on its $2.5 billion credit facility. Net debt was 4.6 times annualized Core EBITDAre (4.8 times in the first quarter) and 95% of NOI was unencumbered.

Source: AvalonBay Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026, scheduled payments table. The 2031 to 2035 row adds the 10-Q's yearly lines (our arithmetic). The ladder excludes commercial paper. The unsecured maturities in 2026 to 2028 plus secured payments total $1,814.4 million, 20.0% of principal debt (our arithmetic). Vivmark's closing 8-K lists the 16 AvalonBay note series, $6.9 billion of principal in the amounts it lists (our sum), as assumed by ERP Operating Partnership, and on September 16 it raised the commercial paper program ceiling from $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion. The joint proxy statement's pro forma balance sheet at March 31, 2026 puts the combined debt at $18.0 billion (our sum of its three debt lines) on $56.5 billion of assets.

Equity: a buyback at $175.59, issuance at about $220

AvalonBay repurchased 1,130,336 shares in the first quarter of 2026 at an average of $175.59 (about $198.5 million), then repurchased nothing in the second quarter, when it settled 2024 forward contracts for 2,760,000 new shares at $220.08 ($607.4 million). In July it settled the rest, 920,000 shares at $219.52. The merger was announced between those two moves on May 20. We draw no conclusion about timing; the table in the data file has each figure with its accession number.

What changed for an AVB holder

Shares converted automatically, and the filings say nothing requires a holder to act. The proxy statement says the merger is intended to qualify as a reorganization under Section 368(a), in which U.S. holders generally recognize no gain or loss on the exchange apart from cash in lieu of a fraction; how that affects cost basis for one person is a question for a tax professional. Equity awards were converted at the same 2.793 ratio. The combined company expects $175 million of gross operating synergies and $125 million of run-rate annual net synergies after real estate tax reassessments, within 18 months of closing. The merger agreement had AvalonBay owing Equity Residential a termination fee of up to about $1.070 billion in certain circumstances; the closing means that clause was not used.

What the next report will show

The latest AvalonBay periodic report is the Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, filed July 30, 2026. Vivmark's most recent 8-K on EDGAR was filed September 17, 2026, and the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 is not filed as of October 19, 2026; no saved filing gives a release date. Under the SEC's 40-day rule for large accelerated filers the deadline would be November 9, 2026 (our arithmetic from the rule, not a company statement). Check three lines when it lands: Vivmark's Core and Normalized FFO definitions for the combined company; the dividend declared for the fourth quarter; and how much of the $300 million of notes due October 15 and the 2027 maturities were refinanced with the larger commercial paper program.

What a holder can do with this

Pick the right comparison. AVB stopped trading on August 17, 2026 and the live security is VMRK, so a dividend, FFO or yield figure quoted per AVB share has to be restated at 2.793 VMRK shares before it is compared with a VMRK number. If you hold the shares for the dividend, watch payout against one measure, and note that VMRK starts with a higher payout than AvalonBay had and without a company FFO outlook. If you compare to other listed apartment landlords, use each one's own measure: see our pages on UDR, Camden and Essex, whose FFO definitions are not AvalonBay's. And if the real question is how a listed REIT's daily price and dividend differ from a non-traded vehicle's quarterly redemptions, our guide to non-traded versus publicly traded REITs sets out that difference.

The alert worth having is the next filing: the Vivmark 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (CIK 915912) Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026; earnings releases furnished on Form 8-K for Q2 2026, Q1 2026, Q4 2025 and Q3 2025; Form 10-K for 2025; merger closing Form 8-K; stockholder vote Form 8-K; joint proxy statement/prospectus; Forms 15 (12G, 15D); Vivmark Residential (CIK 906107, formerly Equity Residential) merger 8-K of May 21, 2026, closing 8-K, debt assumption 8-K, Q2 2026 earnings release, the September 15, 2026 operating update and September 17, 2026 8-K; the September 24, 2026 Vivmark dividend press release (Business Wire, not an SEC filing); EDGAR submissions and XBRL data for CIK 915912 and 906107. Data compiled October 19, 2026.