Dividends fell for first time in eight quarters

UK corporate dividends fell sharply in the first quarter of 2013 when compared with the large one-off payouts seen a year ago, although underlying growth was still solid, according to a new study.
By The Newsroom
Published 27th Apr 2013, 01:01 BST

First-quarter dividend payouts totalled £14.1bn, a drop-off of nearly a quarter from £18.8bn a year earlier, research by British firm Capita Registrars showed.

British companies had seen eight consecutive quarters of year-on-year dividend growth until the first quarter of 2013.

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Last year’s total was aided by a total of £4.4bn in special dividends from Vodafone and Cairn Energy.

HSBC also paid its first-quarter dividend early this year, in December 2012, wiping another £1.2bn off the first-quarter total, while many firms delayed payments into the second quarter to take advantage of a tax cut.

With this range of one-offs taken into account, dividends saw a much healthier underlying growth of 6.1 per cent – albeit still slower than 9.2 per cent growth in the first quarter of 2012.

“There is a modest slowdown in underlying dividend growth underway, but that 6.1 per cent should not be considered a poor performance,” Justin Coop-er, the chief executive of Capita Registrars, said, in response to the survey’s findings.

Related topics:HSBCVodafone