Many SMSF or ordinary 'mum and dad' investors will have dividends as a big priority when deciding where to invest in the share market given the paltry returns on offer from term deposits at banks like the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) or Westpac Banking Corp (ASX: WBC).
One business that offers reliable and large dividends backed up by defensive revenue streams is the Australia and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre operator Scentre Group Ltd (ASX: SCG).
Yesterday it reported that for the quarter ending March 31 2019 that 99.3% of its portfolio was leased with more than 535 million visitors to its ANZ shopping centres every year.
In order to counter the rise of online shopping the group's management is concentrating its assets in prime locations that attract shoppers irrespective of the rise of online shopping. Its shopping centres also now contain a lot of restaurants and other non-retail entertainment again to attract visitors and beat the rise of online.
Today it also reconfirmed it expects to lift its total dividend per share 2% over 2019 to 22.6 cents per share.
That places it on a trailing yield of 5.9% which is reasonable given the expectation that Australian benchmark cash rates are odds on to be cut two more times or by 0.5% in 2019.
