CEO: Russian Railways may pay 25% of RAS net profit in ’13 divs

ST. PETERSBURG, May 22 (PRIME) -- The management of state-owned Russian Railways has considered refusing to pay dividends for 2013, but still dividends will most likely account for 25% of the net profit calculated under Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), President Vladimir Yakunin told reporters on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.

“The opinion of the board of directors on the matter is the following: it’s logical not to pay dividends in the conditions, in which the company is placed. But we, the full board of directors, and the management decided not to make such a proposal because the country is in such a complicated economic situation. We will fulfill the decision, whatever it will be, made by our shareholder, the government. We assume that this decision will be to make us pay 25% of the net profit, like we paid last year,” Yakunin said.

The net profit of Russian Railways plunged to 740 million rubles in 2013 from about 14 billion rubles in 2012.

(34.5078 rubles – U.S. $1)

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