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Companies paid out a record amount of money in dividends to shareholders in the first quarter of 2024 as Alibaba and Meta made the their first-ever payments, a report said Thursday.

Asset manager Janus Henderson tracks dividend payments by 1,200 of the largest publicly traded companies in the world and found that together they paid a record $339.2 billion in dividends in the January through March period.

That represents an increase of 2.4 percent from the same period in 2023.

The first quarter “saw broad strength across the different sectors, with most making steady, single-digit progress,” said the report.

Janus Henderson said the banking sector drove the growth with a 12 percent…