Dividend payments from American companies rose 8.6% in this year’s second quarter to $161.50 billion U.S., according to asset manager Janus Henderson Group (JHG).
The distributions were given a boost by first time payouts from technology giants Alphabet (GOOG/GOOGL) and Meta Platforms (META), which each started paying dividends for the first time this year.
Alphabet and Meta accounted for $4 billion U.S. of the dividend payments made by publicly traded U.S. companies in the second quarter.
Outside of the U.S., dividend payments increased 8.2% in Q2 to reach a record $606.10 billion U.S.
Payouts to shareholders by companies such as bank HSBC (HSBC), food company Nestlé (NESN) and telecommunications provider China Mobile were the largest dividend payers overseas.
Stateside, Microsoft (MSFT) was the largest dividend payer during Q2, distributing $5.60 billion U.S. to its shareholders.
Apple (AAPL) was another notable dividend payer, shelling out $3.80 billion U.S.
Janus Henderson said it expects public companies around the world to pay a record $1.74 trillion U.S. in dividends this year, up 6.4% from 2023 levels.
The stock of Janus Henderson is up 33% over the last 12 months and trading at $36.03 U.S. per share. It pays a quarterly dividend of $0.39 U.S. a share, giving it a yield of 4.33%.
