LIVE MARKETS-Which UK companies are still paying dividends?

* China cuts reverse repo rate * Oil prices tank * EZ banks start freezing dividends * STOXX 600 down 1% Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of European equity markets brought to you by Reuters stocks reporters. You can share your thoughts with Thyagaraju Adinarayan (thyagaraju.adinarayan@thomsonreuters.com), Joice Alves (joice.alves@thomsonreuters.com) and Julien Ponthus (julien.ponthus@thomsonreuters.com) in London. WHICH UK COMPANIES ARE STILL PAYING DIVIDENDS? (0954 GMT) A string of euro zone banks have just announced freezing or scrapping dividend payments after the ECB asked lenders to beef up capital cushions. In the meantime, more than 100 UK firms have postponed or cancelled some 4.2 billion pounds of dividend payments in March alone. When more and more firms are delaying or ditching dividend payments, the real question is: which companies do still pay them? In the UK, only nine companies have maintained dividend payments in the month to last Friday, says AJ Bell. Find below the list: Company Dividend payment held (£ million) SSE 582.0 CCH 208.7 Berkeley Group 124.9 Vivo Energy 29.7 Reach 12.1 GCP Student Living 7.2 Supermarket Income REIT 3.5 Mattioli Woods 2.0 Tandem 0.3 TOTAL 970.4 “The businesses involved are all very different, from a pan-European fizzy drink bottler to a housebuilder, from a utility to a media group..." says AJ Bell. What do they have in common? Here is AJ's view: * Relatively predictable and stable revenues streams or businesses that supply basic needs(food, utilities) * Plenty of cash at hand (net cash or robust balance sheets) * Good levels of interest cover and earnings cover * Interesting debt structure in terms of covenants, maturity (several years away), headroom for the firm to tap existing loans (Joice Alves) ****** OPENING SNAPSHOT: A MORNING BURST OF VOLATILITY (0843 GMT) Futures and cash markets are riding an early roller-coaster this morning with volatility all over the place! There were solid gains at the open but that just fizzled out in thin air in less than 10 minutes, showing that the Chinese repo move ain't gonna save the day after all. Oil prices tanking on the other hand are spooking investors out. Another 10 minutes later most European bourses were deeply in the red and so were most sectors at the exception of chemicals and healthcare. At 0720 GMT, the STOXX 600 was down 1.3%, Milan losing 2%, Paris 1.8% and the DAX 1%. Among individual stocks, a lot of British blue chips led by cinema operator Cineworld after the British authorities said it could take months before the economy could go back to 'normal'. (Julien Ponthus) ***** ON THE RADAR: THE WINTER DIVIDEND IS COMING (0640 GMT) It's a bit a song of ice and fire this morning: blue chips are burning cash like Daenerys Targaryen her enemies and investors have to come to terms with one of the only certainty of these troubled times: the dividend winter is coming! UniCredit became the first Italian bank to comply with the ECB call to put dividend and buybacks on hold to preserve beef up capital and support the economy. It was followed this morning by Dutch lenders ING and ABN Amro which said they would follow the advice of the ECB and suspend any payment of dividends until at least Oct. 1. One exception outside the EU in the banking sector is UBS Group which maintained its 2019 dividend. Apart from lenders, the pay-out freeze is still doing its thing with Sweden's SSAB dropping its dividend for 2019,a move that came less than a week after the steelmaker had halved its original payout proposal. In terms of fire, Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess told German TV channel ZDF his company was burning through $2.2 bln a week with production halted by the coronavirus pandemic. On that note Nissan just announced that its global vehicles sales fell by 24.2%. British fashion chain Next just cut off its remaining source of revenue and shut its online business, bowing to pressure from workers worried about their health. More companies joined in to warn investors about the recession with ABB saying all of its businesses would suffer in the first quarter. Other coronavirus led headlines for European equities include: * British accounting firm KPMG's chairman testing positive for the coronavirus * A new version of a breathing aid has been developed in less than a week by a team involving Mercedes Formula One, and is being tested at London hospitals. * Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have expanded a clinical trial of their rheumatoid arthritis drug Kevzara as a coronavirus treatment to patients outside the United States. (Julien Ponthus) ***** MORNING CALL: STEADY AS SHE GOES (0533 GMT) European futures are trading in the black pre-market despite a difficult session in Asia where shares slipped and oil prices tanked as fears for the global economy lingered on despite the many fiscal and monetary stimulus plans implemented or pledged around the world. China on Monday became the latest to join in with a cut of 20 basis points in a key repo rate. U.S. futures have also cut their losses and are now firmly in positive territory. While investors were hoping that stock markets had reached a bottom in the coronavirus crisis, many analysts warn that the economic damage is likely to be deep and long-lasting. Sunday, a senior medical official said lockdown measures to combat coronavirus in Britain could last months and only be gradually lifted. (Julien Ponthus) ***** . (Reporting by Danilo Masoni, Joice Alves, Julien Ponthus and Thyagaraju Adinarayan)