Lloyds Bank and Aviva part of £9bn FTSE 100 dividend windfall

Bigger payouts by Lloyds Banking Group (LSE:LLOY) and Aviva (LSE:AV.) and the distributions of some popular income stocks will make May a major dividend month for FTSE 100 shareholders.

A total of £9 billion is due from 34 companies, with four of them paying £500 million or more. Alongside Lloyds and Aviva, the others are British American Tobacco (LSE:BATS) and Reckitt Benckiser Group (LSE:RKT).

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Another three stocks currently yield dividend income above 8%, led by the 9.7% of wealth management firm M&G Ordinary Shares (LSE:MNG) and followed by the 9% of retirement savings business Phoenix Group Holdings (LSE:PHNX) and housebuilder Taylor Wimpey (LSE:TW.) at 8.1%.

Barratt Redrow (LSE:BTRW), Standard Chartered (LSE:STAN) and London Stock Exchange Group (LSE:LSEG) are among the other companies in a packed dividend diary.

The payout date for the 2.2 million shareholders of Lloyds Banking Group is 20 May, when they can expect a 15% increase on last year’s full-year award to 2.11p a share. Two years ago, the payment was 1.60p a share.

Together with share buybacks, the dividend of £1.27 billion increases the capital return in respect of 2024 to £3.6 billion, or 8% of the group’s market value based on last night’s close.

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The company’s register of shareholders shows that about 1.7 million small investors hold fewer than 1,000 shares and another 330,000 have between 1,000 and 10,000.

The Aviva dividend for payment on 22 May represents a 7% increase on the year before, in line with the company’s policy to grow the cash cost by a mid-single digit percentage.

This will result in shareholders receiving 23.8p a share, equivalent to a distribution of £633 million. Through dividend growth and regular capital returns, it has returned £10 billion to shareholders since 2020.

Aviva expects an additional mid-single digit percentage uplift in the dividend per share once the takeover of FTSE 250-listed Direct Line Insurance has been completed.

The biggest payment of the month will be the £1.31 billion from British American Tobacco, which is due to distribute a quarterly dividend of 60.06p a share on 7 May.

This is the first tranche of the 240.24p declared alongside 2024 results, with identical payments due to follow in August, November and February. The total is 2% higher than 2023 and represents 66.3% of 2024’s adjusted diluted earnings per share.

Reckitt Benckiser is paying £831 million on 29 May, representing a 5% increase in the distribution to 121.7p a share.

The Strepsils and Dettol firm trades with a dividend yield of 4.2%, which compares with the average for the FTSE 100 index of 3.38%.

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The best yields among this month’s dividend payers include the 8.1% of Taylor Wimpey, which is due to pay 4.66p a share worth £165 million on 9 May.

That’s down slightly on last year’s distribution, but is in line with the housebuilder's pledge to give investors a reliable income stream through the cycle by returning 7.5% of net assets or at least £250 million every year.

Together with the interim dividend of 4.80p a share, the total for the last year was 9.46p a share, or approximately £335 million. Unlike the previous year’s distribution, the 2024 award is not fully covered after adjusted earnings came in at 8.4p a share.

The other housebuilder to pay shareholders this month is Barratt Redrow, which yields 3.5% based on plans for an interim dividend of 5.5p a share or £79 million on 16 May.

Top-yielding M&G is set to pay a second interim dividend of 13.5p a share on 9 May, an increase of 2% on a year earlier after it switched to a progressive dividend policy with 2024 results. It is the first increase in its total cash dividend spend since listing in 2019.

Source: interactive investor, ShareScope. Data correct as at 30 April 2025. *Dividend converted to sterling from dollars at exchange rates on 30 April 2025.