Britain's top companies to splash out 85 bln stg in dividends-study

* FTSE 350 regular dividends seen up 4.4 pct at 75 bln stgin 2015

* Total payouts seen up 11 pct at 85 bln stg excludingVodafone

* Weak oil price may endanger some energy payouts

By Andrew Winterbottom

LONDON, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Britain's biggest companies areset to lavish 85.3 billion pounds ($131 billion) on theirshareholders in 2015 as they drawn on their cash hoards tosupplement regular dividends with additional one-off payouts, astudy said on Monday.

The total level of payouts would be 10.8 percent more thanlast year, excluding Vodafone's return of a $84 billionto shareholders in March 2014 following the approval of the saleof the British company's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless.

However that is less than the 18 percent increase in totalpayouts by members of the FTSE 350 index that Markit hadestimated for 2014, again leaving out Vodafone's exceptionallargesse.

Excluding special payouts, ordinary dividends were seen upjust 4.4 percent this year, Markit predicted, saying there was arisk that even this relatively mean overall increase could beimpacted by tough conditions in some big sectors such as oil.

While total regular dividend payments by FTSE 350 membersare set to hit 75.2 billion pounds, fueled in part by investordemand for income in the face of low returns elsewhere, loweroil and iron ore prices meant cash-strapped energy and miningfirms could trim theirs, Markit said.

The firm's average forecast dividend yield for the indexthis year stood at 4.3 percent, though the top five dividendpayers would all exceed 5 percent. Markit noted this returnshowed the appeal of equities given trends elsewhere.

"As the low interest rate environment persists investorscontinue to turn to equities as a source of income," said RyanBransfield, head of UK dividend research at Markit.

Bransfield added that oil majors were likely to cut capitalexpenditure before turning the knife to dividends, but warned ofthe possibility of lower payouts should prices remain low for aprolonged period.

One stand-out performer within the oil and gas sector,however, is John Wood Group, which Markit expects to seeraise its dividend by 25 percent in 2015 thanks to profitsgenerated from its activity in the U.S. shale oil business.

In spite of the potential cuts, the oil and gas sector wasexpected to give back the most to shareholders, at 13.1 billionpounds, followed by healthcare at 10.5 billion and banking at9.3 billion pounds.

In terms of special payments over and above the ordinarydividend payouts, Markit said it expected the pharmaceuticalsand insurance sectors to contribute the most.

Chief among the former is GlaxoSmithKline, set toreturn 4 billion pounds following an expected transaction withNovartis involving its consumer healthcare, vaccinesand oncology businesses in the first half of the year.($1 = 0.6495 British Pounds) (Editing by Simon Jessop and David Holmes)