When the Bank of England’s top brass raise an eyebrow, lenders do as they are told. It took a bit more than a stern gaze, though, to force the UK’s largest banks to drop their dividend payments last month and shore up capital reserves as the coronavirus pandemic worsened.
Close Brothers might be a minnow compared with HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and NatWest, but it dutifully followed suit and dropped its 2020 interim dividend of 22.7p a share, to save about £34m.
The decision was a blow to income-hungry investors. The FTSE 250 lender has broken a 35-year run of dividends, which it paid even during the financial crisis.
“This decision is perhaps all the more disappointing for investors given the strength of the