This month is set to see blue chips declare their largest dividends of the year.
This month really is dividend month.
You see, many FTSE 100 companies release their final results during February, which means the next few weeks ought to see the largest shareholder handouts of the year being declared.
To help put the cash payouts into perspective, I've delved through the market's top tier to find the largest twenty companies that have results scheduled for this month.
I've then used City dividend estimates provided by Bloomberg to calculate the possible cash payout.
Here's what I found:
I don't know about you, but collecting a slice of that £14 billion certainly sounds attractive to me.
Bear in mind the following, too:
- Those shares represent about 60% of the FTSE 100 index in terms of market cap, so the actual dividends to be declared this month could be somewhat more than my £14 billion total.
- My list does not include big payers such as BT (LSE: BT-A), Tesco (LSE: TSCO) and Vodafone (LSE: VOD), which declare their dividends at other times of the year.
- All the names in my table declare at least one other dividend during the year, with Shell, BP, HSBC, Glaxo, Barclays and Unilever actually declaring another three.
Anyway, I'm sure this month's dividends should provide a solid foundation for the £75 billion that Capita Registrars predicts could be distributed as dividends for 2012 as a whole.
Just so you know, those listed twenty dividends should actually start being paid to shareholders from mid-March, with most payments being made during April and May, although one or two could be left until June or early July.
Right now, index-tracker investors backing the entire FTSE 100 are in line to collect a 3.5% blue-chip income. However, I see Shell, HSBC, BP, Glaxo, BAT, AstraZeneca, Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, Centrica and BAE Systems all offer potential yields above the wider market perhaps allowing you a greater share of that £14 billion, if you position your portfolio accordingly! And if you want to do that, then check out our Essential Investor Kit, which is available for free for a short time only.
> The Motley Fool owns shares in AstraZeneca, BHP Billiton, GlaxoSmithKline, Reckitt Benckiser, Standard Chartered, Tesco and Unilever.
