2024-01-07 13:45:07
Three groups distributed 37% of the total sum: TotalEnergies (18.4 billion), BNP Paribas (9.7 billion) which replaces Sanofi, second in 2022, and LVMH (7.1 billion). Stellantis, Axa and Sanofi complete the group which makes it possible to exceed 50% of the amount redistributed.
The forty companies in the CAC 40, the main French stock index, distributed a record amount of 97.1 billion euros to their shareholders in 2023, in dividends or share buybacks, according to the financial letter Vernimmen.net. “In 2023, according to our compilations, CAC 40 companies returned 97.1 billion euros to their shareholders, including 30.1 billion in the form of share buybacks and 67.1 billion in the form of dividends in cash, the highest level ever recorded since we did this study”, it is specified in the specialized newsletter sent on Saturday.
The previous record was set in 2022, at 80.1 billion euros, including 23.7 billion in the form of share buybacks and 56.5 billion in the form of dividends. Vernimmen.net uses exactly the same terms to salute the 2023 performance: “excellent” despite “a complicated economic and geostrategic context”, with an unemployment rate at its lowest, business creations at their highest ever in the first eleven month of the year and a record CAC40 level.
BNP Paribas, Axa, Airbus and Publicis, “significant new followers” of share buybacks
Three groups distributed 37% of the total sum: TotalEnergies (18.4 billion), BNP Paribas (9.7 billion) which replaces Sanofi, second in 2022, and LVMH (7.1 billion). Stellantis, Axa and Sanofi complete the group which makes it possible to exceed 50% of the amount redistributed.
In total, “26 groups have carried out significant share buybacks (at least 100 million euros) in 2023, i.e. as many as last year”. TotalEnergies, driven by the rise in oil prices, is in the lead and BNP Paribas follows thanks to the sale of its retail bank in the United States. Share buybacks are a way of remunerating shareholders because companies often destroy them following the buyback, which automatically increases the market value of the remaining shares. This measure is regularly the subject of criticism, mainly because the money dedicated to these buybacks is not reinvested in the company and in the real economy. Vernimmen.net notes “significant new followers” of this practice in 2023: BNP Paribas, Axa, Airbus and Publicis.
On the dividend side, only Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield did not pay any due to its debt, compared to three groups in 2022. The letter also notes a record investment at 94.2 billion, up 20% compared to 2022, and an “outperformance” of the CAC40 in terms of valuation (2,362 billion) compared to the top 40 German groups (1,560 billion) and British (1,780 billion).
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