Over the past three months, dividends from UK-listed companies have soared thanks to large payouts from London’s largest miners.
Payments in the third quarter of 2021 rocketed to £34.9billion, an 89 per cent increase year on year, according to data from financial tech firm Link Group.
The increase was attributed to ‘large one-off special dividends’, however underlying dividends, which do not include specials, also surged 53 per cent to £27.7billion.
Digging deep: The mining sector saw an ‘unprecedented boom’ in dividends, which quadrupled year on year to £12.8billion
The mining sector saw an ‘unprecedented boom’ in dividends, which quadrupled year on year to £12.8billion, more than the next five biggest sectors combined.
BHP, for example, announced a record-setting final dividend of $2 (145p per share) in August.
Meanwhile, surging crude prices allowed payouts from oil firms to recover faster than expected, while the restoration of dividends from big banks following a ban last year also boosted the numbers.
However, the quarter was compared to the same period in 2020 when Covid cut dividend payouts half off.