Shareholders of FTSE 100 firms are expected to receive close to £80bn in payouts this year alone.
That helps explain why investors like me are happy to own blue-chip dividend shares from the flagship index.
Here are three such high-yield shares I think investors looking for passive income should consider.
Should you invest £1,000 in Legal & General right now?
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Legal & General
Financial services firm Legal & General (LSE: LGEN) can seem like an unloved FTSE 100 share at times.
Over the past five years, its share price has fallen by a quarter.
That is despite the company having a well-known brand, large customer base, and focus on the massive retirement-linked financial services market.
On top of that, the business has been consistently profitable during that period and has been a regular dividend raiser, with a current yield of 9%.
Why the stock market pessimism over the share?
Earnings have fallen in the past couple of years. I see strong competition and volatile financial markets as risks for Legal & General’s valuation. It is no coincidence that its last dividend cut, in 2009, was in the wake of the financial crisis.
But I think there are significant strengths to this longstanding firm.
Phoenix
Legal & General is not the only FTSE 100 financial services firm to raise its dividend annually in recent years.
So too has Phoenix (LSE: PHNX). It has also set out plans to keep growing the payout per share annually.
In practice, whether Phoenix does that will depend at least in part on its commercial performance. Given its millions of existing customers, well-known brands such as Standard Life, and a proven business model, I am optimistic that the firm could potentially keep generating large amounts of free cash flow.
That matters because at the end of the day it is having enough spare cash flowing through a business that allows it to maintain — let alone grow — its dividends.
Phoenix has a mortgage book and I see a risk that any market crash pushing default levels or interest rates outside its assumptions could hurt earnings.
But I think investors ought to consider this 10.4% yielder for its passive income potential in 2025 and beyond.
M&G
Phoenix and Legal & General are not alone when it comes to having raised their dividend per share annually in recent years and aiming to keep doing so.
The same applies to FTSE 100 member M&G (LSE: MNG).
With millions of customers in multiple global markets, I think the asset manager has both depth and breadth. That can be positive when it comes to spreading risks, riding the wave in growing markets, and building a large client base.
But such an approach also brings risks such as the potential for weakness in one market to hurt overall performance. M&G saw clients pull more funds out of its core business in the first half of last year than they put in. If that trend continues I see a risk to profits – and potentially the dividend too.
For now, the yield is 10%.
