Record value: German companies are paying more dividends than ever before

According to a study, listed companies in Germany want to pay out more money than ever to their shareholders for the past year.

According to calculations by the DSW shareholders' association and the isf Institute for Strategic Finance at the Essen University of Applied Sciences FOM, the dividends add up to around 70 billion euros - almost 50 percent more than in the Corona year 2020. The previous record of 57.1 billion euros from the 2019 is thus also clearly exceeded.

The 40 Dax companies alone pay out more than 50 billion euros.

"On the dividend side, the pandemic is over," said the investor and author of the study, Christian Röhl, on Thursday.

In the past two years, many companies had reduced or canceled dividends under the impact of the Corona crisis.

Now the shareholders would again participate in the economic success to the usual extent, Röhl stated.

While many companies had paid dividends out of substance last year, this year's increases have reflected rising earnings and cash flows, said FOM Dean Eric Frere.

For companies in the major stock market indices (Dax, MDax, SDax), 41 percent of profits would be distributed, one percentage point less than in 2021. However, it is still unclear whether some companies will subsequently correct their profit appropriation proposals because of the war in Ukraine.

According to the study, the Stuttgart car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz, which has more than tripled its distribution and pays out almost 5.4 billion euros to the shareholders, is dividend-Krösus in the Dax this year.

He thus outperformed the Munich insurance giant Allianz, which came to 4.4 billion euros.

Two other car companies follow in third and fourth place: BMW with a good 3.8 billion and Volkswagen with 3.77 billion euros.

The biggest payer, however, is the shipping group Hapag-Lloyd, which has increased its dividend tenfold and pays 6.1 billion euros, but is not listed in any of the major indices.

The largest growth rates in the Dax are recorded by Puma (plus 350 percent), Mercedes-Benz (plus 270 percent), BMW (plus 205 percent) and Covestro (plus 162 percent).