Key highlights

  • ASX:VHY tracks the FTSE Australia High Dividend Yield Index and holds 96 companies.
  • Australia accounts for 99.67% of the portfolio, with the top ten holdings making up 61.74%.
  • The fund has about $8.18 billion in assets and a 0.25% management fee.

The Vanguard Australian Shares High Yield ETF (ASX:VHY) offers exposure to Australian companies with higher forecast dividend yields through a single ASX-quoted fund. The fund holds or is exposed to most of the securities in the FTSE Australia High Dividend Yield Index, allowing individual weightings to vary marginally from the index.

About the Fund

VHY was admitted to the ASX on 26 May 2011 and is classified in the Australia Equity Income category. The fund may invest in securities that have been removed from, or are expected to be included in, the index, and may hold securities outside it where Vanguard identifies opportunities to gain exposure to securities that are or may become index constituents. The fund has about $8.18 billion in assets, and the management fee is 0.25%. The head office is in Melbourne.

Country exposure

The largest country allocation is Australia at 99.67%, followed by China at 0.2%. The remaining exposure is spread across New Zealand (0.13%).

Of the portfolio, 98.08% is in companies valued above $1 billion.

Portfolio holdings

The portfolio holds 96 companies, with top ten holdings making up 61.74% of the fund. The largest positions are BHP Group Ltd (10.4%), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (9.48%), National Australia Bank Ltd (6.12%), Westpac Banking Corporation (6.1%) and ANZ Group Holdings Ltd (5.8%).

The top ten also include Rio Tinto, Woodside Energy, Macquarie Group, Telstra and Transurban.

Understanding the exposure

The five largest positions add up to 37.90% of the fund, which shows how much of the exposure rests on a small number of names. The remaining 86 holdings share the other 38.26% of the portfolio, an average of about 0.44% each. Exposure is spread across 3 countries or regions, and the three largest allocations (Australia, China and New Zealand) together account for 100% of the portfolio.

Fees, size and distributions

VHY pays distributions quarterly. The most recent distribution was an interim distribution of $1.201 per unit, with an ex-date of 1 October 2026 and payment on 16 October 2026, and the reported annual yield is 3.63%.

Fund structure and reporting

VHY has an ISIN of AU000000VHY4 and a head office at Level 13, 130 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Recent ASX announcements from the fund include an outstanding securities notice for September 2026, a distribution tax estimate, details of the distribution reinvestment plan and final distribution notices.

Australia Equity Income funds invest principally in Australian equities that seek to generate above-market levels of income, either through higher-yielding stocks or through derivatives that complement dividend income, and they typically have a large-cap bias.

Units in VHY are quoted on the ASX and can be bought and sold through a broker during trading hours, in the same way as shares, so the exposure described above is available without buying each holding separately. The fund follows a rules-based index, so its holdings and weightings are set by the index methodology and adjusted when the index is rebalanced.