The Lemon Fool

In the interests of diversification out of mainly UK holdings, I recently added Siemens AG (3.27% yield) and Danone SA (2.76%), neither particularly high yielding. I also still hold some Verizon Communications Inc (4.32% yield) which I got courtesy of Vodafone.

I am considering adding General Electric (4.70% yield) and Telefonica SA (5.5% yield)

Any thoughts on these?

Has anyone invested in non UK HYP companies? If so which?

Do you have any recommendations for non UK HYP company research sources?

In my portfolio I have a few foreign high(er) yielders as follows

Unibail-Rodamco
Allianz
BMW
Daimler
ING DiBa
Aegon
BASF

I also considered Telefonica, but i think that they have significant debt? Maybe worth checking

I'm not sure about to go about filling in the Foreign Income part of the tax return if your dividends from "foreign companies" exceeds £300 p.a.

Then there is the issue of with-holding tax etc. Wouldn't it simply be easier to invest via an IT (being careful as to their country of registration) ?


(Is the GE yield 4.6% after US with holding tax, for example ?)

p.s. Telefonica's debt appears to be 2x the companies net worth.

There was a fairly lengthy thread on non-UK HYP candidates a couple of weeks ago. This included completing tax returns and using investment trusts as an alternative if only to avoid completing the foreign section (and withholding taxes).

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=13132

thanks all for your helpful replies

By accident I came across Nordea Bank, NDA, the largest bank in Scandinavia, I think . My research was 4 months ago, so I'm relying on memory for the details. They have paid a dividend every year this century, although 08 or 09 it was slashed as you would expect. HL quotes 6.8% today, the shares are quoted in Swedish krona. I've been dithering over buying in for a few months and unfortunately the share price has risen about 15%, that puts me off,a little, maybe it shouldn't.
As sterling is sinking fast against most currencies, maybe a foreign denominated share is a good strategy?
Anybody have a view on this company?
DP

scottnsilky wrote:As sterling is sinking fast against most currencies, ...

Is it? From looking at some charts, it appears to me to have been rising fast over the last 2 weeks or so, falling fast over the last 4 months or so, roughly unchanged from either about a year ago or about 2 years ago but with no consistent direction inbetween, etc. I.e. what one sees it as doing depends on the time scale one looks at...

Gengulphus

As I don't like paying tax on my dividends I stick mainly to US stocks held in a SIPP. Canadians are a tolerable 15%. Europeans, no thanks.

Re GE, though I hold as a contrarian waiting for a return to favour, they have cut dividends several times in the last few years, so would not normally be a company I would entertain.

baldchap wrote:As I don't like paying tax on my dividends I stick mainly to US stocks held in a SIPP. Canadians are a tolerable 15%. Europeans, no thanks.

Re GE, though I hold as a contrarian waiting for a return to favour, they have cut dividends several times in the last few years, so would not normally be a company I would entertain.

I think that the Dutch plan on removing divi witholding taxes soon - perhaps a market for you to keep an eye on? (Aegon, and ING DiBa)

Horsey wrote:I think that the Dutch plan on removing divi witholding taxes soon - perhaps a market for you to keep an eye on? (Aegon, and ING DiBa)

I am doing some work for a Dutch company at the moment and I believe the current plan is for the witholding tax to be dropped as of 2020.

Terry.

Wizard wrote:

Horsey wrote:I think that the Dutch plan on removing divi witholding taxes soon - perhaps a market for you to keep an eye on? (Aegon, and ING DiBa)

I am doing some work for a Dutch company at the moment and I believe the current plan is for the witholding tax to be dropped as of 2020.

Yes, Unilever have said that as well in their RNS about merging their dual listed company structure into a single Dutch company:

Unilever N.V. dividends are currently subject to Dutch dividend withholding tax at a rate of 15%. The Dutch government has announced that the Dutch dividend withholding tax will be abolished from 1 January 2020.

Gengulphus