Westpac Banking Corp (ADR) (NYSE:WBK)

ErnieKo (47.33) Submitted: 11/9/2007 3:07:53 PM : Start Price: $100.15 WBK Score: +4.35

I started buying (a little) at 12.90 in 1993 after doing a lot of research on this Australian bank. Looked to me like a potential leader in banking in the Southern Hemisphere. Tripled my holdings in 2002, at 41.17 because its management coninuously impressed me. More than doubled my holdings again in 2005 at 75.5. The stock in the last 6 months has been trading between 125 and 140+.
Throughout the bank has been characterized by
1) Good management that doesn't seem to fall for the latest get-rich-quick scheme -- e.g., near-zero writeoffs for bad mortgages.
2) A culture of increasing dividends year to year to keep them at about the same percentage (~ 5%) of current stock price. So I'm getting huge dividend returns from my early stock buys.
3) Benefits from the huge infrastructure investments being made in nearby China, and to some extent in India. (For exports that carry high transport costs, like coal and iron ore, Australian industry has a huge advantage because of short transport distances.)
4) Benefits from the weakness in the U.S. dollar -- the same dividends and asset values in Australian dollars translate ot higher U.S. dollar returns.
Biggest risk is a slowdown in the Indian/Chinese infrastructure investments. But that's TOUGH to do on purpose; it'd generateing temendous political unrest in those still-underdeveloped countries.