Pound's plunge boosts FTSE dividends to record £16.6bn

Sterling's slump following the Brexit vote may be about to squeeze your income, but if you own shares, you may well have cashed in.

According to Capita Financial Services, FTSE 100 dividends soared to a record £16.6bn in the final three months of 2016.

That took the 2016 total to £85bn, which FT Adviser reports is up £5.2bn on 2015 but still short of the all-time high in 2014.

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Driving the bumper dividend payout and was the fall in value of the pound, which accounted for 90 per cent of the uplift, reports Capita.

Sterling's demise has also been good news for the FTSE 100 in capital growth terms. The index's overall value increased for 14 sessions in a row to a sequence of new record highs last week.

As of this afternoon, at 7,155, it is around 13 per cent up on pre-referendum levels.

More than two-third of the companies in the list earn their money overseas and so benefit from the fall in the pound, which is down 15 per cent against the dollar since before the Brexit vote.

In addition, a number of companies also paid out special dividends in view of their higher exchanged earnings.

In fact, without the increase in special dividends, the total payout for 2016 would have fallen.

Justin Cooper of Capita Asset Services told the FT: "2016 was an unusual year for dividends. It started pessimistically with a raft of high-profile cuts taking their toll.

"But the second-largest haul of special dividends on record, with the added alchemy of huge exchange rate gains following the pound's devaluation in the summer, ultimately turned a rather leaden year golden."