A reply to /u/first-of-his-name

For the VOC, some figures were given in Braudel's The Perspective of the World and in Vries & Woude's The First Modern Economy. Between 1612 and 1654, annual profits were around 441,000 florins. Just over half were paid as dividends to the shareholders. This increased as they entered the Dutch Golden Age, to annual average of 538,000 florins, and then 826,000 florins around 1696. But as profits declined, they continued to pay out increasing dividends, until in 1720 profit was zero but the VOC borrowed money to pay dividends.

I have no idea about the EIC.