The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX: ANZ) share price has delivered the goods for shareholders over the past year. To the surprise of some investors, the smallest of the big four bank shares on the ASX has produced the biggest gains.
Over the past 12 months, the ANZ share price pulled a 49.6% return. Comparatively, the biggest bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA) gained 40%. The next closest to ANZ was the National Australia Bank Ltd (ASX: NAB) share price, climbing 43.5% over the period.
Let's look at what possibly put the ANZ bank out as the leading racehorse in the past year.
Catching the property boom
According to the bank's first-half report for FY21, Statutory profit after tax for the half-year was $2.9 billion, up 45% on the previous half. Continuing cash profit was up 28% to $2.99 billion.
This strong result was in part thanks to the snapback in the economy which has seen excess income flowing into the property market. It appears ANZ made the most of this, becoming the third-largest home lender in the Australian market.
Illustrating this uptick, the bank reported Australian new home loan accounts of 92,000. This represents a 43.8% increase from the prior corresponding period.
Additionally, the bank increased its capital buffer to 12.4% while also lifting dividend payments. Analysts at Morgans noted the profit and dividend were larger than expected. As a result, the broker maintains a bullish sentiment with a target of $34.50 on the ANZ share price.
Other analysts take on the ANZ share price
Not all brokers are as optimistic on ANZ shares as Morgans. Analysts at Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) are concerned about the bank's core earnings (excluding provisions) continue to decline.
Although, Macquarie's analysts are expecting dividends to recover to $1.40 per share in FY21. This likely has dividend investors foaming at the mouth, with the potential payment translating to a yield of 4.98% based on the current ANZ share price.
Incidentally, these forecasts of juicy dividends align with the expectations voiced by asset manager Janus Henderson Group CDI (ASX: JHG) yesterday. In our coverage, the asset manager painted a depiction of future flowing dividend streams.
