Income, income, income! Finding more of it has been high on the agenda of every Australian heading towards retirement over the last few years.
Investors have chased the solid dividends on offer from the likes of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ASX: ANZ), Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS), Woolworths Limited (ASX: WOW) and Woodside Petroleum Limited (ASX: WPL), but have seen their capital erode over the last 6 months as the Australian market declined by 9%.
Dividend GROWTH important
We're now seeing analysts pull back their dividend expectations to the point where many of these staple holdings could potentially reduce their dividend payouts over the next five years.
This is bad for share prices and bad for investors that rely on income to fund their lifestyles in retirement. One company that I believe investors are overlooking has outperformed the ASX200 by 15% this year, is set to return 4% fully franked over the next 12 months, and is expected to increase its dividend by 46% over the next two financial years!
This blue-chip company, with a market cap of $17 billion, has operations in 43 countries and policyholders of its insurance products in in more than 140 countries. It is, of course, Australia's largest listed insurer: QBE Insurance Group Ltd (ASX: QBE).
Have you overlooked this blue-chip dividend machine?
The average of 14 analysts that cover the stock indicates that QBE should pay out around 36 cents per share in dividends this financial year, however the real reward is in 2016 and 2017. The same analysts see the company increasing profit enough to return the dividend to over 53 cents in 2017, an increase of 46% in just 2 years!
