DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - Shareholders in Germany can look forward to a record amount of dividends for the past fiscal year. Despite numerous burdens resulting from the Ukraine war, listed companies intend to distribute a total of around 75 billion euros to their shareholders this year, according to calculations by the Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz (DSW) and the isf Institute for Strategic Finance at the FOM University. This exceeds the previous year's record by 9 percent. Whether this trend will continue is uncertain from the point of view of shareholder representatives in view of numerous challenges.

Shareholders of Dax companies in particular are benefiting from the dividend blessing. The 40 companies in Germany's top stock market league pay out an estimated 52.5 billion euros - and thus contribute the lion's share. According to the figures, the three carmakers Mercedes Benz, BMW and Volkswagen alone will receive a combined total of around 15.5 billion euros. A total of 27 Dax companies are increasing their dividends. Four stock market heavyweights are not paying any dividends.

According to the analysis, medium-sized and smaller companies are showing signs of slowing down. In the MDax, only just under half of the 50 companies are paying out 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, shareholders of only 24 of the 70 companies will receive more money. Shareholders of 19 companies will receive nothing.

The largest single payer is the traditional shipping company Hapag Lloyd, which is not listed in any index due to its low free float, with 11.1 billion euros. The dividend is to be almost doubled to 63 euros per share.

Shareholders' participation in profits is decided by the Annual General Meeting and paid for the past fiscal year. This year, therefore, shareholders of the 644 listed companies evaluated will receive the dividend for fiscal 2022, which in some cases turned out better than initially feared after the start of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

According to an evaluation by the auditing and consulting firm EY, the sales of the Dax groups increased by a total of 15.5 percent last year compared to the previous year to 1.8 trillion euros, thus reaching the highest value since the evaluation began in 2013. The operating profit (Ebit) of the 40 groups improved by 3.4 percent to a total of 171 billion euros.

Most Dax companies succeeded in passing on high costs for personnel, procurement and energy to their customers, Henrik Ahlers, Chairman of EY's Management Board Germany, recently analyzed. Some companies had also benefited from a comfortable order cushion from the time of the Corona pandemic.

According to DSW CEO Marc Tüngler, this year is likely to show which companies are prepared for the future in the face of challenges from high inflation, the energy crisis, disrupted supply chains and digitalization, among others. "2023 will be a real litmus test," Tüngler said.

Currently, the biggest loser is reportedly the real estate sector. Whereas last year the nine sector companies represented in the indices paid a total of 2.3 billion euros in dividends, the current figure is 800 million euros. The real estate sector is under pressure from higher interest rates and high construction costs.

Shareholders are often less than pleased with the development of the share price. According to a recently published evaluation of shareholder representatives, the biggest "capital destroyers" in recent years include Corestate Capital Holding SA and Adler Group. For example, the stock price of the real estate investment manager and co-investor Corestate Capital Holding had almost atomized in the past five years./mar/DP/mis