Many companies in Germany defied the high inflation and uncertainties resulting from the Ukraine war last year. Numerous shareholders also benefit from this. Some companies, on the other hand, are not very happy.
Those who rely on the right companies can sometimes look forward to lavish dividends. (Photo: Pixabay)
Shareholders in Germany can hope for a record amount of dividends for the past financial year. Despite numerous burdens as a result of the Ukraine war, listed companies want to pay out a total of around 75 billion euros to their shareholders this year, according to calculations by the German Protection Association for Securities Ownership (DSW) and the isf Institute for Strategic Finance at the FOM University. This surpassed the previous year’s record by 9 percent. From the point of view of the shareholder representatives, it is uncertain whether this trend will continue in view of the numerous challenges.
Above all, shareholders of the Dax companies benefit from the dividend blessing. The 40 companies in the top German stock exchange league pay out an estimated 52.5 billion euros – and thus contribute the lion’s share. According to the information, the three car manufacturers Mercedes Benz, BMW and Volkswagen alone total around 15.5 billion euros. A total of 27 Dax companies are increasing their dividends. Four stock market heavyweights do not pay dividends.
According to the evaluation, skid marks show up at medium and lower values. Only half of the 50 companies in the MDax distributed more than in the previous year. However, the rise of heavyweights such as Airbus from the MDax to the Dax must also be taken into account. In the SDax, the shareholders of only 24 of the 70 companies receive more money. At 19 companies, the shareholders get nothing.
At the top as the largest single payer is the traditional shipping company Hapag Lloyd, which is not listed in any index due to the low proportion of free float, with 11.1 billion euros. The dividend is to be almost doubled to EUR 63 per share.
Shareholder participation in profits is decided by the general meeting and paid for the past financial year. This year, shareholders of the 644 listed companies evaluated will receive the dividend for the 2022 financial year. In some cases, this turned out better than initially feared after the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
According to an evaluation by the auditing and consulting company EY, the turnover of the Dax companies last year increased by a total of 15.5 percent to 1.8 trillion euros, reaching the highest value since the start of the evaluation in 2013 operating profit (EBIT) of the 40 companies improved by 3.4 percent to a total of 171 billion euros.
Henrik Ahlers, Chairman of the EY Management Board Germany, recently analyzed that most DAX companies have managed to pass on high costs for personnel, procurement and energy to their customers. Some companies also benefited from a comfortable cushion of orders from the time of the corona pandemic.
According to DSW Managing Director Marc Tüngler, this year should show which companies are geared to the future in view of the challenges from high inflation, the energy crisis, disrupted supply chains and digitization. “2023 will be a real litmus test,” said Tüngler.
According to the information, the real estate sector is currently the biggest loser. While the nine industry companies represented in the indices paid a total of EUR 2.3 billion in dividends in the previous year, it is currently EUR 800 million. The real estate sector is under pressure due to higher interest rates and high construction costs.
The price development often gives shareholders little pleasure. According to a recently published evaluation by the shareholder representatives, Corestate Capital Holding SA and the Adler Group are among the biggest “capital destroyers” in recent years. For example, the stock market price of the real estate investment manager and co-investor Corestate Capital Holding has almost atomized in the past five years.