HSBC tops Nestle as world’s best dividend payer while China Mobile leads Hong Kong peers

HSBC Holdings emerged as the world’s largest dividend payer during the second quarter of this year, while growth in the Asia-Pacific region lagged behind the rest of the world during the period, according to asset manager Janus Henderson Investors’ latest global dividend index.

The largest bank in Europe and Hong Kong topped the dividend-payout list with a total disbursement of US$11.7 billion for the June quarter, aided by a US$4 billion special dividend with proceeds from the sale of its Canadian operations. That was the single largest special dividend in the world during the quarter, accounting for nearly a third of the global tally.

The British bank’s payout increased following a call from its largest shareholder, Ping An Asset Management, who urged HSBC to improve its dividends last year.

Some individual Hong Kong shareholders backed by Ping An had sought a return to the annual pre-pandemic payout of 51 US cents a share, which was distributed for four years from 2015. The bank cancelled its fourth-quarter 2019 dividend and the payout for all of 2020 at the request of the UK regulators, who wanted HSBC and other British banks to shore up their balance sheets during the pandemic.