Attention, the numbers that you are about to see may cause dizziness, confusion and amazement. The brothers Alain and Gerard Wetheimer, owners of 100% of the capital of the Chanel group, were awarded 3.4 billion euros in dividends for the year 2016, according to an internal document unearthed by Challenges.
This is more than double that in 2015, the year during which the two brothers were already granted a cheque of 1.6 billion euros in dividends. But the dividends that the Wertheimers were paid in 2016 are especially surprising when compared to the financial results of the group. In effect, the € 3.4 billion represent nearly two-thirds of group sales and 4 times the net profit achieved in the same year !
Dividends that would cripple the cash position of the group
These pretty gifts will offer the brothers Wertheimer come in effect within a difficult context for the Chanel group. Turnover down 9% to us $ 5.67 billion, as the operating result (decrease of 20% to $ 1.28 billion) and net profit, which fell by 35% to 874 million. Worse still, those big dividends have leaded the cash position of the group, specialising in the luxury, which passes under the bar of a billion dollars “for the first time since a very long time,” says Challenges.
Alain and Gerard Wertheimer, ranked 6th in fortune professional from France according to the latest ranking of the Challenges with 21 billion euros are estimated, so they will bail out their bank accounts already well filled. And these are not the only shareholders that have known a year 2016 successful…
In 2016, the distribution of dividends and buybacks has reached a level close to those before the financial crisis. In the companies of the CAC 40, the dividends amounted last year to $ 46.2 billion euros, which is approximately two times more than the average of the last five years…
| Also read : Payment of dividends: 2016 close to the level before the financial crisis
