Core owner: Sistema may still sell controlling stake in Detsky Mir

YAROSLAVL, Aug 6 (PRIME) -- Russian multi-industry holding Sistema may still sell a controlling stake in children goods retailer Detsky Mir and there are seven contenders for the stake, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, chairman of the board of directors and an owner of 64.18% in Sistema, told reporters on Monday.

Sistema owns 52.1% in the retailer, the Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) holds 14%. Free float accounts for 33.9%. Sistema and the RCIF cancelled a secondary public offering (SPO) of Detsky Mir in December 2017 due to arrest of the stake under a case of oil major Rosneft against the holding.

“I do not rule this out. There are not three contenders for that, but seven. That may still happen,” Yevtushenkov said, reiterating that Sistema will not hold a secondary public offering (SPO) of Detsky Mir.

“There will be no SPO, we‘ve already said that a long time ago.”

Yevtushenkov also said he will not reject Sistema’s final dividends for 2017 as he did with dividends for January–September 2017.

“No, the amount of dividends there is tiny, so it would be a mockery to reject them. Last year the dividends (for the first nine months) were big, so I had to do it and it was the right thing. But to it today would be just a PR move,” he said.

The shareholders of the company approved payment of 0.68 rubles per share, or 13.6 rubles per global depositary receipt (GDR) – a total of 6.562 billion rubles – in dividends for January–September 2017 last November. But Yevtushenkov asked the company not to pay him 4.213 billion rubles of due dividends.

(63.4549 rubles – U.S. $1)

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