Until not long ago, BBVA stood as the most profitable company within the sector in which it operates for the shareholder this 2023. Its position as ‘king of the dividend’ has been assured for a while, but as the markets approached the halfway through the year they have found certain values to snatch the podium, as is the case of Caixa Bank, which has placed itself above the entity led by Carlos Torres. However, the real ‘Sorpasso’ has come from the hand of Mapfre, which has flattered both on the left and gained positions until it remains the listed one that OR PERFORMANCE OFFERS TO ITS Investors in terms of remuneration within the financial sphere.
The profitability of the group headed by Antonio Huertas currently exceeds 8.26%, a percentage that is only ahead of Enagás (10.8%) when comparing the Ibex 35 listed companies. It is followed by Telefónica, also with 8.26% and we must go down to fourth and fifth place to find the aforementioned CaixaBank (8.1%) and BBVA (7.67%). Part of this result is explained by the worse performance of the insurer in the stock market in comparison with these two banks, after posting a drop of 1.1% so far this year, compared to the modest rise of 3.3% of the firm chaired by Ignacio Goirigolzarri and the rebound of 23.2% of the entity based in the candle.
At the shareholders’ meeting held last May, Mapfre’s board of directors participated in the distribution of 263 million charged to the 2022 accounts for the complementary dividend. In this way, the ‘pay-out’ ratio (percentage of profit that goes to shareholders) is close to 70% if one takes into account the 186 million distributed at the end of last year. In any case, the interim dividend that is normally stipulated for the end of the year has yet to be announced.
CaixaBank already paid more than 1,730 million last April, equivalent to 55% of the profit obtained in 2022, after setting in its remuneration policy to distribute slightly more than half of its consolidated net earnings through a single payment. BBVA, for its part, distributed more than 1,800 million last April after obtaining the largest profit in its history in 2022, to which another dividend will possibly be added in the final stretch of the year, as it did last October.
In the background are Sabadell, Unicaja Banco and Bankinter, whose dividend yield ranges between 6.9% and 6.7%. This represents a drop of almost one point compared to the end of March 2023, when they were close to 8%. The falls experienced in the stock market as a result of the near financial crisis in the United States, which ended (for the moment) last May with the private rescue of First Republic Bank, as well as in Europe, where the financial earthquake forced the purchase from Credit Suisse by UBS, widened this margin.
In the last three and a half months, the dividend yield has narrowed as the price has recovered from the blow, although the aforementioned Unicaja Banco and Bankinter are still resisting the stock market meltdown and it leads them to accumulate a decline of 5.2% and of 1.18%, respectively, in the annual calculation. On the contrary, Sabadell has increased in value by more than 26% so far this year.
In this line, Santander climbed in the ranking to the fourteenth position, but rose 5.6% from the 4.7% it marked at the end of the first quarter of the year, given the worst performance recorded between April and so far in July. As a whole, it accumulates a revaluation of almost 19%, with a ‘pay-out’ ratio of 50%, in line with that established by the large Spanish banks. All of the aforementioned projected a return above the average of the Ibex 35, whose average has been around 4% over the last three decades, according to BME data.
Below are some such as Acciona (3.4%), Fluidra (3.28%), Ferrovial SE (2.55%), Indra (2.3%), Amadeus (1.5%) and Cellnex Telecom ( 0.16%). IAG, Meliá and Solaria are left off the list, which do not plan to approve a dividend, as is Grifols, which keeps it suspended until they reduce the volume of debt to four times the ebitda, something that may happen at the end of 2024, according to the roadmap established by the company itself. Traditionally, summer is usually one of the golden times to make this outlay in which the group of all members listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange will pay around 7,000 million.
