dividends

Hopes that Aberdeen Asset Management could announce a "significant" dividend hike in its forthcoming annual results have sent the group to the top of the FTSE 100 leaderboard.

BP's shareholders have called for a cash payout to be made if the sale of its 50% stake in TNK-BP goes through, as talk it is poised to offload its holding imminently picks up.

UK dividend payments hit another record high in Q3 2012, the latest figures from Capita have revealed, although the mood was soured somewhat as it warned it will be "much harder" to make progress in 2013.

MAM Funds' Gervais Williams has revealed the key stocks driving performance on his Acuim UK Multi Cap Income fund, which reached its one-year anniversary this month.

The chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland has suggested the business will restart dividend payments to shareholders after 2013, by which time its restructuring phase should be complete.

ASIAN INCOME

UK dividends rose 18.4% in Q2 2012 to reach a record high of £22.6bn, fuelled by special dividends and strong underlying growth, according to the latest Capita Dividend Monitor.

The Foreign & Colonial investment trust is to move to quarterly dividend payments and raise its total dividend for 2012 by 20%, as part of an overhaul of its distribution policy.

MAM Funds is hoping to as much as double the assets in Gervais Williams' Diverse Income trust through a C-share issue.

The sheer size of US corporate cash piles could provide a boost to the wider economy this year, according to Capital Economics.