Companies in the euro area are poised to cut dividends to the lowest level in four years as chief executive officers stockpile cash to weather the region’s sovereign-debt crisis.
Payouts to shareholders in the Euro Stoxx 50 Index will fall by 3.3 percent to a combined 115.48 euros a share this year, according to more than 500 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Reducing them by that much would cut the dividend yield to 4.3 percent from 6.3 percent in September 2011, even after cash on balance sheets climbed to the highest since 2008, the data show.
The forecasts suggest more companies will follow Royal KPN NV and Enel SpA in reducing payouts as the debt crisis pushes unemployment in Spain and Greece to more than 25 percent and China’s economy cools. Analysts are cutting estimates amid a rally that has sent the Euro Stoxx 50 to a 17-month high as central-bank measures hold down bond yields.
“Within Europe, it’s excess cash on balance sheets” that attracts investors, said Bank of America Corp.’s John Bilton, European investment strategist at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit in London. “The current levels of dividend yield are not sustainable.”
Holdings of cash and equivalents at companies in the Euro Stoxx 50 climbed 9.3 percent to a combined 1,834.44 euros a share in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. While the gauge’s estimated dividend yield fell over the past year, projections for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index increased to 2.3 percent from 2.2 percent, Bloomberg data show.
Economy Shrinks
The euro-area economy will shrink 0.1 percent in 2013 after a 0.4 percent contraction last year, according to the median projection of 49 economists in a Bloomberg survey. China is forecast to report 2012 growth of 7.7 percent, the slowest rate since at least 1999, the data show. Those hurdles will help shrink revenue for European companies by 1 percent this year, analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg indicate.
“The headwinds coming from slow economic growth are driving weak consumer demand, undermining corporate profitability,” said Abi Oladimeji, who helps oversee $4.3 billion as head of investment strategy at Thomas Miller Investment Ltd. in London. “Will companies be able to make enough in earnings to pay those dividends? In an environment where the economic and political outlook is highly uncertain, it is hard for executives to make investment decisions.”
2012 Gains
The Euro Stoxx 50 climbed 14 percent last year, the first gain since 2009, as the European Central Bank announced an unlimited bond-buying plan to hold down borrowing costs in the region’s weakest economies and the Federal Reserve began a third round of asset purchases. The index, which advanced to the highest level since July 2011 last week, rose less than 0.1 percent to 2,702.54 the close of trading today today.