Gentrack Group Ltd (ASX: GTK) shares, Mantra Group Ltd (ASX: MTR) shares and National Australia Bank Ltd. (ASX: NAB) shares are offering generous dividends.
Each company is different from the next but finds itself on my investing watch list for the reasons below.
Gentrack Group
Gentrack Group is a New Zealand software company specialising in developing programs for airports and utility companies like energy and water providers. Despite its small size (by sharemarket standards) the business has proven to be a reliable dividend payer with defensive features. Yet, it also offers modest growth potential.
At today's prices, Gentrack shares trade on a trailing dividend yield of 2.5%.
Mantra
Mantra is the owner of Mantra hotels, BreakFree and Peppers brands. The hotels market can be a challenging, cyclical industry with many different accommodation providers and technology companies like Wotif and Airbnb vying to take a cut of the pie. These concerns are reflected in the share prices of many hotel providers.
Indeed, Mantra shares fell to a low of $2.58 earlier this year after topping $5.05 less than two years ago, over fears of competition. However, Mantra shares might prove to be good value today if the company can continue to creep profits higher and pay its forecast 4% dividend.
National Australia Bank (NAB)
NAB is Australia's fourth-largest bank, with meaningful stakes in the business banking and retail banking markets. NAB's expansion into the United Kingdom and the USA resulted in the bank's shares significantly underperforming its peers following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.
NAB has now rid itself of its under-performing businesses and is taking strides to grow its presence in its core Australian and Kiwi operations. NAB shares are forecast to pay dividends of 6.6%.
Foolish takeaway
Dividends are a great way to extract value from your investment and sometimes can be tax-effective. However, at today's prices, I'm not rushing out to buy shares in these companies. Instead, I have each of them on my watch list.
