Rio Tinto PLC (LSE:RIO) looks set to keep its crown as the dispenser of mega dividends when it releases full-year results on Wednesday.
Based on payments over the last year, the mining giant and despoiler of Aboriginal heritage sites is already the king of London's dividend payers, coughing up £5.5bn over the last year, putting it a cool half a billion ahead of Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL, EURONEXT:SHELL), the oil titan.
In third place, proving that the tobacco habit is not dying (to coin a phrase) out anytime soon is BATs, with payouts of £4.9bn while on the other side of the coin GlaxoSmithKline PLC (LSE:GSK) has splashed out £4.0bn, not that it has kept all of its shareholders happy.
Also feeling the attention of disgruntled investors is consumer goods giant Unilever PLC (LSE:ULVR); it may remain a "reassuringly dull" investment with the acceleration of a 1970s Division Two centre-back but it is hard to fault its generosity. Sector peer Reckitt Benckiser PLC clocks in at the 13th biggest payer but then it is smaller than Unilever.
A surprise to some will be the continued existence of Vodafone Group PLC (LSE:VOD) among the big payers, with the company stumping up £2.5bn in dividends, adding weight to the view that its days as a glamour technology stock are long behind it and it is now a boring utility in the style of BT (which is conspicuous by its absence from the top 20 list).
Meanwhile, loitering towards the bottom of the Top 20 is an impressively large cadre of insurance companies. Let's see how generous they are with storm-related payouts this season ...
The table below details the generosity of some of the biggest names listed in London and that's before we even factor in share buybacks, which is some circles also counts as "returning cash to shareholders".
Ticker · Name · Free cash flow dividend cover · Dividend payout (£mln)
RIO · Rio Tinto PLC · 1.3 · 5,515.2
SHEL · Shell PLC · 3.2 · 5,021.9
BATS · British American Tobacco PLC (LSE:BATS) · 1.5 · 4,947.3
GSK · GlaxoSmithKline PLC · 0.8 · 4,007.2
ULVR · Unilever PLC · 1.4 · 3,747.5
AZN · AstraZeneca PLC (LSE:AZN) · 0.9 · 3,255.3
BP. · BP PLC (LSE:BP.) · 2.4 · 3,116.2
VOD · Vodafone Group PLC · 2.6 · 2,540.2
HSBA · HSBC Holdings PLC · 59.8 · 2,233.3
NG. · National Grid PLC (LSE:NG.) · -0.7 · 1,744.7
DGE · Diageo PLC (LSE:DGE) · 1.7 · 1,694.8
IMB · Imperial Brands PLC (LSE:IMB) · 1.2 · 1,316.3
RKT · Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC (LSE:RKT, ETR:3RB) · 1 · 1,247.4
AV. · Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.) · -3.2 · 1,060.7
LGEN · Legal & General Group PLC (LSE:LGEN) · 3.7 · 1,048.5
MHM · Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc · 2.9 · 1,042.3
AAL · Anglo American PLC (LSE:AAL) · 0.5 · 997.58
REL · RELX PLC (LSE:REL) · 1.7 · 960.84
JAR · Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd · 4.1 · 917.34
CRH · CRH PLC (LSE:CRH) · 3 · 902.65