Aton: Russia’s Raspadskaya may pay final dividends for 2017

MOSCOW, Jun 15 (PRIME) -- Russian coal producer Raspadskaya will consider paying final dividends for 2017, investment company Aton said in a research note after meeting with representatives for Raspadskaya’s parent company Evraz.

But the company does not want to rush with dividends, as good financial results for January–June may be temporary due to the pressure from the rising ruble and a possible contraction of prices for coking coal in July–December, the analysts said.

After a serious accident at a mine in 2010, Raspadskaya paid dividends only for January–June of 2011 of 5 rubles per share, or a total of 3.9 billion rubles. In 2016, shareholders of the company decided to spend 6.75 billion rubles of the net profit to cover losses of previous years, and to not distribute the remaining 6.2 billion rubles.

Currently, Raspadskaya is in a good shape and produces about 600,000 tonnes of coal a month. Representatives of Evraz told Aton that the group of companies does not study reorganization of its coal business and does not plan to raise its stake in Raspadskaya to 100% from the current 81.95%.

(57.0303 rubles – U.S. $1)

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