Share payout is ‘ridiculous’

Postal giant’s dividend slammed as staff suffer

ROYAL Mail are dishing out a record £68million to private shareholders despite profits diving by nearly a third.

The postal giant yesterday upped their half-year dividend by an inflation-busting four per cent to 7.7p.

That benefited workers and retail investors who have shares after the firm’s controversial privatisation.

But the vast bulk of the payout will go to big investors, said the Communication Workers’ Union.

The CWU are locked in a dispute with Royal Mail over workers’ pay and pensions.

The hike in the interim dividend came despite half-year profits falling 30 per cent to £77million. Revenues rose two per cent up 14.3 at 7386.9 GKN GlaxoSmithKline Halfords Hays HSBC Imperial Brands International Airlines Grp ITV Kingfisher Land Securities Legal & General Lloyds Marks & Spencer Morrison National Grid Next Old Mutual Pearson Prudential Reckitt Benckiser to £4.8billion, fuelled by Royal Mail’s European parcels business GLS. Their UK parcels arm also grew but the number of addressed letters it handled fell five per cent. Boss Moya Greene said the business had seen a “strong start” to their financial year. Dave Ward, CWU general secretary, said: “The privatisation of Royal Mail has never looked more ridiculous. The half-year results see a record £68million go to private shareholders at a time postal workers are under more pressure than ever.” Yesterday’s accounts also showed Royal Mail booked another £44million from the sale of property, plant and equipment and were sitting on £2billion of similar assets. Their share price rose 1.7 per cent to 395p. 296.0 1318.0 334.1 184.2 732.4 3061.0 601.5 150.3 300.1 937.0 267.8 66.1 303.6 210.8 889.5 4320.0 188.8 694.5 1880.0 6385.0 Oil -14.8 +10.5 +1.2 +4.0 -3.1 +39.5 +12.5 -0.3 -0.9 +14.5 +2.0 -0.2 +1.9 +3.8 -0.5 +43.0 +0.1 +1.0 +20.0 +30.0 = $61.44 RELX 1748.0 Rentokil Initial 323.5 Rio Tinto 3549.0 Rolls-Royce 897.0 Royal Mail 395.5 RSA 613.0 RBS 274.0 J Sainsbury 229.1 SSE 1379.0 Severn Trent 2144.0 Serco 100.7 Sports Direct 376.8 Shell 2378.5 Sky 903.0 Smith & Nephew 1344.0 Smiths WH 2025.0 Stagecoach 158.9 Standard Chartered 721.2 Standard Life Aberdeen..416.4 TalkTalk 168.2 Taylor Wimpey 194.8 +20.0 +1.5 -11.5 -10.0 +6.5 +8.0 -0.9 +5.1 +24.0 +5.0 +2.2 -3.0 -57.5 +3.0 +19.0 +10.0 -0.1 -2.2 +6.0 -10.0 +2.8 Tesco Thomas Cook Unilever United Utilities Vodafone Trinity Mirror 184.4 114.9 4222.0 834.5 228.5 77.8 +0.7 +1.9 +11.5 +0.5 +0.1 +1.5