dividends

Robin Geffen and Emma Stanford from Neptune Investment Management say demand for income coupled with a low supply should allow UK equity income funds to generate significant returns this year.

Brooks Macdonald, the financial planning and asset management group, will pay an interim dividend for the first time this month as pre-tax profits almost doubled in the second half of 2009.

ETFs provide low-cost exposure to a range of diversified asset classes for ISA investors seeking to obtain returns in a low interest rate environment, says Barclays Stockbrokers.

Major insurers are spending ­millions of pounds of cash reserves to win a larger share of the corporate pensions market, despite evidence that much of the business will prove to be loss-making, according to a leading insurance-market expert.

The Dow Jones Stoxx Global Select Dividend 100 index has been licensed to iShares to underlie an ETF listed on the Deutsche Boerse today.

NYSE Euronext has launched the CAC 40 Dividend index and the AEX Dividend index.

Investors are braced for their dividend income to fall by 13% this year as Britain's quoted companies horde cash to ride out the recession, reports the Guardian.

The Government has announced legislation to restore the non-payable dividend tax credit for offshore funds which are largely invested in equities.

Brown Shipley believes at least a quarter of FTSE 350 companies will be either reducing or scrapping their dividends over the next 12 months.

Dividend payments from the UK market have shown an annual increase in all but five years since the beginning of 1965, according to analysis by Fidelity International.