2023-05-24 02:34:31
The amount of dividends paid worldwide in the first quarter increased by 12% year on year to reach a new record, according to the report by asset manager Janus Henderson published on Wednesday. Payments to shareholders amounted to 326.7 billion dollars (294.4 billion Swiss francs) between January and March, following already a record in 2022, carried by banks, oil producers and car manufacturers, which compensated for the drop in profits of the mining groups.
Read also: Dividends paid worldwide hit $1.56 trillion in 2022, a record
Exceptional dividend payouts reached $28.8 billion (CHF25.9 billion) in the first quarter, ‘their second highest level ever’ (following the first quarter of 2014), according to the study .
“Ford and Volkswagen accounted for almost a third of the extraordinary dividends” of the first three months of the year and “the dividends paid by the automotive sector were ten times greater” than last year, notes the press release from Janus Henderson. “Volkswagen caused a stir in the first quarter, paying out an extraordinary dividend of $6.3 billion (5.6 billion Swiss francs) from the proceeds of Porsche’s IPO late last year,” complete the report.
On this subject: Porsche valued at 75 billion euros for its IPO
$1.64 trillion in dividends expected in 2023
Ben Lofthouse, head of Janus Henderson’s global equities team, said the rising dividend momentum “is all the more impressive given that 2022 has been a difficult year for the global economy with high inflation, rising interest, conflicts and the maintenance of certain confinements in the face of Covid-19”.
The first-quarter dividend champion was Danish shipping group Moller Maersk, which distributed $11.7 billion (CHF10.5 billion), “of which just over half was in the form of an extraordinary dividend. which reflects a record net profit recorded in 2022, thanks to the increase in container freight prices.
Read once more: Why Switzerland is a dividend champion
For the year 2023 as a whole, Janus Henderson is revising its forecast upwards and “now forecasts that global dividends will amount to 1640 billion dollars (1478 billion Swiss francs), which is equivalent to an overall growth of 5 .2%”.
Another way to remunerate shareholders, share buybacks also reached a record in 2022.
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