Share-holders in clover

Britain’s biggest companies handed out almost half a trillion pounds in dividends and share buybacks in the years before the coronavirus crisis struck, according to a report warning that the scale of the pay-outs has undermined their resilience.

According to research from the Common Wealth thinktank, around £400bn was paid in dividends and £61bn of cash returned to investors in share buybacks between 2011 and 2018 by the 100 biggest UK companies.

Analysing dividends for the 100 largest non-financial, UK-domiciled firms on a database managed by the credit ratings agency Moody’s, it found that payouts had steadily risen since 2011 and were equivalent to 68% of the companies’ net profits.

The study also found that 700 executives at 86 of the companies held a collective £6bn in shares at their firms, representing nearly £8.5m per director.

Mathew Lawrence, an academic, said: “Shifts in ownership and company rules have turned the corporation into an engine of wealth extraction for senior management and shareholders. Companies have become less resilient and more unequal as a result."

As expected though the only proposals being offered is not system change but to "transform ownership to make business democratic and sustainable" - to fix capitalism, an impossible task rather than do away with it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/400bn-paid-in-dividends-by-uk-companies-before-coronavirus-crisis