Investing in the Other Country Down Under

The largest holding in ENZL, at 17%, is Telecom Corp of New Zealand (NZTCY). NZTCY has a long track record of generous dividends but it fared poorly during the bear market of 2008.

Since then, however, some then-unknown issues involving competition have been resolved and the company spun off its infrastructure division into its own publicly traded company, Chorus Ltd, which has a 4.3% weight in the fund.

Fletcher Building has a 15% weighting in the fund. The company is probably a less familiar name but it makes the kind of construction materials that will be needed to rebuild Christchurch from its earthquake of 18 months ago.

As mentioned above, New Zealand equities are generally high-yielding, and this is reflected in ENZL's payout of 6.67% on a trailing basis. This does not ensure that the yield in the future will be that high but does offer a reasonable basis for expecting a yield that exceeds most broad domestic ETFs.

At the time of publication the author had no position in the stocks mentioned.

This article was written by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.

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