Income-hungry equities investors chasing higher UK blue chip dividends will be frustrated for the next two years while rebounding companies keep a tight hold on cash in the choppy economic climate.
"Dividend income should be judged on a stock specific basis The likelihood is that the dividend growth in the largest stocks in the UK is going to lag," said Jim Wood-Smith, research head at investment management company Williams de Broe.
In the global financial crisis, equities investors fled the UK market, many spooked by profit warnings, restructuring, cut dividends and cash retention plans as companies used austerity measures to survive and, now, rebound from the recession. Most analysts agree the worst corporate profit downgrades are over but say UK companies will retain cash from growth to weather further economic turmoil and trading difficulties or for share buybacks and sector consolidation.
Investors, such as fund manager Sarasin, have become more cautious on the dividend outlook for UK blue chips, compared with their European peers.
As the market tiptoes back towards normality, Goldman Sachs is picking FTSE 100 dividend payout ratios - a measure of how much payouts are being made out of earnings - to fall to 42 percent in 2012, from 52 percent in 2010, equating to a fall of about 20 percent over two years. This contagion will likely spread to the FTSE 350, with Thomson Reuters data showing almost static dividends and generally rising cash flows among the mid caps.
Of the 20 largest blue chip dividend payers, the energy and financial sectors would see payout ratios fall the most, with dividends remaining broadly flat and companies retaining more of their increased earnings, the Goldman Sachs research showed. Thus, HSBC, Royal Dutch Shell, Diageo, BHP Billiton and Standard Chartered would see their payout ratios fall 5-30 percent. This data is underlined by the NYSE Liffe FTSE 100 Dividend index, which indicates slow growth in blue chip dividends in the short term.
"Financials are in dire need of rebalancing. I suspect a large proportion of any surplus cash will be used to shore up the balance sheets particularly in light of possible legislative issues," said Peter Dixon, economist at Commerzbank.
Exceptions included real estate investment trusts such as Land Securities, said Evolution Securities analyst Paul Pulze, noting these stocks' dividends would remain flat even though their payout ratios would rise. "You're going to see their cashflow and recurring earnings decline because some of the (commercial property) companies are starting to do developments and therefore you are losing rental income and lifting capital expenditure," Pulze said.
Income-focused investors facing a wilderness of static or falling payout ratios are not totally without options, provided they are prepared to pop the hood on companies and scrutinise their financials and growth potential.
"The key for equity income investors is to make sure they are comfortable with the company's balance sheet and the company has enough free cash flow so they can pay and increase their dividend," Wood-Smith told Reuters.
He said FTSE 100 tobacco stocks Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco appealed, as they were cash generative with good levels of dividend cover and growth. In the FTSE 350 he picked BritVic and Dairy Crest.
Analysts also said they preferred defensive stocks such as drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca. Tineke Frikke, manager of the 2.5 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) Newton Higher Income fund, is cautious on the prospects for banks and mining stocks, but bullish on utilities Scottish & Southern Energy and Centrica.
She is upbeat about oil major BP's future dividend, even though it was cut for 2010 following the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill in the United States, costing it many billions of pounds for compensation and clean up.
"BP will pay again in February 2011, we believe the share price is too cheap," Frikke said, citing phasing of liability payments, assumptions on the cost of the incident, the asset disposal programme and strong underlying cash generation. City Index strategist Joshua Raymond said companies would continue to be conservative on how much they pay out until it was clear that the risk of a double-dip recession had passed, a stance that carried other benefits for investors. "Maintaining a lower dividend could have a longer term benefit to the share price to get through stormy times ahead," he said.