Company dividends have fallen by an unprecedented amount but so has business investment. What next?

Link’s regular dividend monitor shows payments made by UK companies in the second quarter of this year were half the level they were a year earlier, writes James Moore

The City of London has lost its beloved dividends and it wants them back (Getty)

It’s the great Covid-19 dividend cull.

Payments fell by an unprecedented 57 per cent in the second quarter of the year, according to Link, a financial administration company which publishes a regular monitor.

That falls a bit if you take one-off specials, of which there were a lot this time last year, out of the equation.