I hope you're feeling patriotic, because in honour of Australia Day I'm writing about three of the best Australian shares on the ASX.
There are not too many shares on the ASX that you can say are Australian and also one of the best in the world in their industry.
I think these three definitely make the grade:
Pro Medicus Limited (ASX: PME)
The healthcare technology company is headquartered in Richmond, Melbourne. Its subsidiary, Visage Imaging, is a global provider of enterprise imaging and advanced visualization solutions for diagnostic imaging.
Pro Medicus has been one of the best-performing ASX shares over the past decade – 10 years ago its share price was under $1, now it's at $26. Indeed, it was under $0.50 for most of 2011 and 2012.
Now it's respected as one of the most promising shares on the ASX with exciting new contracts, no debt, a rapidly rising dividend, new market opportunities and an earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) margin of over 51%.
Brickworks Limited (ASX: BKW)
Australia loves construction. There may not be many things more Australian than a business involved in supplying many of the products used to build property. Bricks, pavers, stone, masonry, roofing, precast and cement – Brickworks supplies it all. It's the leader, or one of the top national businesses, in each of the building product categories I just mentioned.
Not only is Brickworks involved in supplying the products used to build property, it also owns 50% of a growing industrial property trust. The growing of eCommerce means these well-located industrial properties are increasingly desirable for logistics businesses.
In addition to the property exposure, Brickworks has a large stake of high-quality investment house Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co. Ltd (ASX: SOL). It's also expanding into the large US brickmaking market.
Brickworks has been a dependable business for its shareholders for many years. I imagine it will remain strong for a long time to come.
REA Group Limited (ASX: REA)
If Aussies are obsessed with building properties then I'd say we're even more addicted to buying and selling property. There are so many property shows on TV!
REA Group may be the best way to profit from Australia's love of property. It owns the key property website realestate.com.au, which allows REA Group to earn a nice fee for every property that is listed on the site. You'd be missing out on a big chunk of buyers if you don't advertise digitally these days.
The company has a great market position, it can keep raising its prices with little detrimental effect. I think REA Group is a great way to get a little bit of exposure to every residential property in Australia.
Foolish takeaway
If you could go back in time 10 or 15 years then Pro Medicus and REA Group would be incredible buy-and-hold opportunities. However, their high valuations today mean I'm more drawn to Brickworks at the moment, but over the next decade I think that all three could beat the market.
