Depending on how you look at it, 2023 is set to be the worst year for growth in dividends paid by UK-listed companies – or the lack of it – for who knows how long. It's certainly worse than those weird Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021, when dividends crumpled.
In the third quarter of 2023, dividends paid by London’s listed companies fell 8 per cent on the year to £27.5bn, according to the latest UK Dividend Monitor from companies’ registrar Computershare. As a result, the registrar estimates that payouts for 2023 as a whole will be £90.7bn, 3 per cent lower than 2022’s £93.9bn. Worse, 2023’s estimate – if realised – will be lower than the total distributed six years earlier in 2017 when £94.5bn was paid out.
It means that recovery from the Covid shock is a faltering process, obviously much weakened by all that has come along since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now more than 18 months ago. So topping 2019’s record payout of £104.5bn is still some years away. Even if dividends in aggregate proceed to grow at 4 per cent a year from 2024, it would still be 2027 before 2019’s figure was exceeded.