June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Fifth Third Bancorp and KeyCorp, two noteworthy additions to the list of U.S. banks that have reduced their dividends, may soon have more company.

Eight other banks in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index have projected annual payouts of more than 7 percent of their share price, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Regions Financial Corp. has the highest dividend yield in the group. Huntington Bancshares Inc. and Wachovia Corp., which cut payouts in April, are included. So is Bank of America Corp., the second-largest U.S. bank by assets. BB&T Corp., Comerica Inc., Marshall & Ilsley Corp. and SunTrust Banks Inc. are too.

The estimated yields at each of these banks are the highest since at least the 1980s, a clear indication that many investors don't expect the dividends to last. Seeing that loan losses are piling up as consumers struggle to keep up with home, auto and credit-card payments, the skepticism is understandable.

What's more, their payouts are relatively generous by the S&P 500's standards. They rank among the 15 biggest for stocks in the benchmark. And the 7 percent threshold is far above the index's figure, 2.3 percent, as of yesterday's close.

Fifth Third, based in Cincinnati, was the highest of all before reducing its quarterly dividend yesterday by 66 percent, to 15 cents a share. The cut was announced along with a plan to raise $2 billion through equity and asset sales. Before then, the stock's projected yield stood at 16.7 percent.

50 Percent Potential

KeyCorp is second with a 13.5 percent estimated yield, Bloomberg's data shows, but only because the Cleveland-based bank has yet to declare a lower dividend announced a week ago.

``The board has expressed its current intention'' to cut the payout in half, to 18.75 cents a share quarterly, the bank said in a regulatory filing. The reduction is scheduled to take effect with the third-quarter payout, which may be announced in about a month based on KeyCorp's past practice.

Regions Financial, Alabama's biggest bank, is the most obvious candidate for a dividend cut. The company's quarterly payout rate, 38 cents a share, was equivalent to 13.3 percent of yesterday's close. Only KeyCorp and American Capital Strategies Ltd., an investment company, had higher yields in the S&P 500.

It's possible that the bank may match KeyCorp's 50 percent reduction, according to a Bloomberg analysis based on earnings, cash flow, debt and other criteria.

Then again, any dividend cut would surely be traumatic for Regions Financial, based in Birmingham, Alabama. The bank is in the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, a gauge of companies that have raised payouts for at least 25 years in a row.

Maybe Second Timers?

Huntington Bancshares, based in Columbus, Ohio, and Wachovia, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, don't have that kind of track record to protect. And even after taking April's cuts into account, the stocks' potential yields are on the high side at 9.6 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively.

Dividend yields for the rest range from 9 percent for Dallas-based Comerica to 7.4 percent for Marshall & Ilsley, based in Milwaukee. Whether investors in the banks will reap these payouts much longer has to be in doubt.

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Sanofi-Aventis SA's strategy in fending off competition from makers of generic drugs might now be summed up this way: Beat 'em and join 'em.

Like many drugmakers worldwide, Sanofi has gone to court repeatedly to prevent lower-cost copies of its pharmaceuticals from hitting the market. Last week, for instance, the company filed a lawsuit accusing India's Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. of violating a U.S. patent for Uroxatral, used to treat an enlarged prostate gland.

Sanofi, France's largest drugmaker, opened up another front yesterday by bidding the equivalent of $1.96 billion to buy out other investors in Zentiva NV, a generic-drug producer run from Prague. The Paris-based company already has a 25 percent stake. PPF Group NV, which owns about 20 percent of Zentiva's stock, previously offered to buy the rest.

A winning offer would send Sanofi in the same direction as Switzerland's Novartis AG, which makes generic drugs along with its own products. Generics account for 19 percent of its sales.

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British newspaper companies are suffering along with their U.S. counterparts, judging by Gannett Co.'s latest sales figures for its U.K. unit. In response, a price gap between Daily Mail & General Trust Plc's two share classes has become a chasm.

While Gannett is best known as the publisher of USA Today, the McLean, Virginia-based company controls 17 daily papers and about 300 other publications in the U.K. through Newsquest Plc. The unit generated 16 percent of Gannett's revenue last year.

Newsquest's revenue from classified advertising dropped 14.7 percent in May, and Gannett's release of the figure sent U.K. newspaper stocks tumbling yesterday. Non-voting shares of Daily Mail, the London-based publisher of its namesake paper, dropped 4.5 percent to 338.5 pence.

Yet Daily Mail's voting shares closed unchanged at 617.5 pence, or 85 percent higher than the other class. At the start of the year, the gap was only 26 percent. Scarcity value might explain the differential, as this year's volume in the voting class equals 16 minutes trading in the non-voting stock.

(David Wilson is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: David Wilson in New York at dwilson@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 19, 2008 00:01 EDT