Friday newspaper round-up: Dividends, PPE, China GDP, National Grid
Britain’s biggest companies handed out almost half a trillion pounds in dividends and share buybacks in the years before the coronavirus crisis struck, according to a report warning that the scale of the payouts has undermined their resilience. According to research from the Common Wealth thinktank, around £400bn was paid in dividends and £61bn of cash returned to investors in share buybacks between 2011 and 2018 by the 100 biggest UK companies. – Guardian
The government has been too slow to enlist British textile firms to make protective gear for the NHS, according to industry figures, who say they have been desperate to contribute to the “war effort”. Faced with a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), the Cabinet Office has only recently begun scrambling to source it from UK suppliers and has now outsourced the process to consultants from accountancy group Deloitte. – Guardian
China's economy contracted for the first time in nearly five decades last quarter as drastic measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic brought activity to a standstill, official data shows. Gross domestic product shrank 6.8 per cent between January and March, compared with the same period a year earlier, according to figures released on Friday by China's National Bureau of Statistics. – Telegraph
National Grid may have to issue emergency orders to switch off power plants this summer as the pandemic hits demand and threatens to leave Britain’s networks overwhelmed by too much electricity. The company said that it expected to have to intervene more than usual to keep the system balanced because the lockdown restrictions could destroy 20 per cent of usual power demand. – The Times
Demand for mortgages and credit card lending is expected to fall in the second quarter as the economy suffers a sharp fall in output, the Bank of England has forecast. In its quarterly credit conditions survey, the Bank also found that lenders were planning to scale back the availability of such loans. The survey was conducted between March 6 and March 20, just before the government imposed stringent social distancing measures. – The Times