The investment management group, which formed following last year's merger of the Janus Capital Group and the Henderson Group, said global dividends surged in the third quarter, jumping 14.5% on a headline basis to $328.1 billion, comfortably a Q3 record.

It has now added $91 billion to its initial 2017 global dividend forecast, upgrading it to a new record of US$1.249 trillion, an increase of 7.4% on a headline basis and 7.3% on an underlying basis.

It said every region saw dividends increase in Q3 in underlying terms, with records broken in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, the latter boosted in particular by the return of mining dividends, as commodity price rises and slimmed-down cost bases meant soaring profits for the sector.

In the UK, Janus Henderson said dividends staged a comeback, jumping at the fastest underlying rate in the world in the third quarter, up 17.5% thanks largely to the mining sector.

North American dividends dominated, accounting for four dollars in every 10 paid globally.

"In recent years it has been rare to see dividends growing in every region of the world at the same time," Janus Henderson global equity income fund manager Ben Lofthouse said.

"After record second and third quarters, the world's listed companies are comfortably on course to deliver the highest ever annual total this year."

The company analyses dividends paid by the 1,200 largest firms by market capitalisation, calculated gross using the share count on the pay-date, and converted to US dollars.