Ka-ching! $193-bn Dividend Bounty For India Inc. Shareholders

Promoters of listed businesses rake in ₹14.67 lakh crore as cumulative payout over five years.

- KESHAVDEV

Its not raining, it's pouring — money. Over the past five years, a record-breaking surge has seen owners of listed businesses taking home an unprecedented bounty in dividend payouts. Over the course of the past five years, amid the ebb and flow of bustling businesses and market tumult — punctuated by the pandemic — a vivid portrait of prosperity has come to the fore. We're talking cold, hard cash flowing directly from company coffers to shareholders, with the lion's share of the unprecedented wealth going to their promoters.

According to data sourced and analysed by Fortune India Research, over the past five years (FY19 to FY23) a record ₹14.67 lakh crore was paid out in cumulative dividends by listed companies, that's $192.86 billion. In each of these years, the number of dividend-paying companies varied with 1,352 paying in FY19, 1,104 in FY20, 1,245 in FY21, and 1,412 in FY22. In the recently concluded fiscal, 1,388 companies paid out dividends. What's interesting, though, is that despite the varying number of companies, the cumulative payout has only trended higher. From ₹1.94 lakh crore in FY19, the cash bonanza surged in subsequent years, hitting a high of ₹4.43 lakh crore in FY23. The bumper bonanza comes amid cumulative five-year profit of these companies surging to ₹41.98 lakh crore. In percentage terms, the total payout works out to 35% of the overall profit pool.