Windstream Holdings ( NASDAQ: WIN ) pays a tremendously generous dividend. At 12.3%, its yield is in fact the second-highest among the S&P 500 ‘s ( SNPINDEX: ^GSPC ) components.

But the company is heading into uncharted waters. Windstream is about to spin off its networking assets into a separately traded real estate investment trust, or REIT, structure. Which of course begs the question: will this be the end of Windstream’s abundant dividend payouts?

The answer depends on how you approach the stock. Let’s take a look at three important options.

Option 1: Hold your existing Windstream shares

This is a simple choice. Windstream’s management has been pretty clear about what’s going to happen under this scenario: The annual dividend payouts of $1 per share under the existing stock will shrink to $0.70 per share in 2015.

The share counts will change drastically. Existing shareholders will receive one REIT share for every four Windstream Holdings stock certificates. Furthermore, there will be a reverse stock split, splicing Windstream’s shares in a 6-for-1 ratio.

The exact share counts won’t matter much, save for meeting the listing requirements of the major stock exchanges, but the dividend math will look very different.

The REIT stock will offer most of the new payouts. For each Windstream share you hold today, the REIT vehicle will pay dividends of $0.60 over the coming year. The other stock — let’s call it Windstream’s service stock — will drop its dividend policy all the way to $0.10 per current share. Translating these figures into post-split numbers, the REIT will pay $2.40 per share and the operating stock stop as $0.60 per share.

Despite all these accounting acrobatics, however, the dividend will indeed drop to $0.70 per current Windstream share. It’s a 30% drop, which will reduce the effective yield by the same amount.

All things considered, the effective yield on Windstream shares bought today will drop to a still generous but far less impressive 8.4%. It’ll still beat any savings account you’d care to mention, and I still think that Windstream is a valid and interesting investment under these circumstances.

Option 2: Wait and buy only the REIT stock

If you don’t already own Windstream shares, or if you would like to change your exposure to the company once it splits in two, you’ll soon be able to buy only the dividend-focused REIT.

The mechanics of this will depend on how the market actually reacts to the new pair of companies. Windstream’s management has provided some estimates, tied to the operating company’s plan to keep 20% ownership of the REIT and sell it all on the open market.

Assuming that these estimates are in the right ballpark, here’s how the math works out after doing the reverse splits (sounds like a painful gymnastics routine) and everything else: