Russia’s Rostelecom ready to pay half net profit in dividends

MOSCOW, Feb 2 (PRIME) -- Russian state-controlled telecom operator Rostelecom is ready to fulfil a government request to pay dividends at 50% of its net profit, a spokesperson for Rostelecom said Tuesday.

“According to Rostelecom’s new dividend policy, the amount of payments must not below the level recommended by the Federal State Property Management Agency for companies with state interest,” the spokesperson said.

The agency’s Director Olga Dergunova said that the authority had suggested raising the ultimate threshold of dividends paid by state firms to 50% of the net profit, starting with payments for 2015. It is still too early to voice accounting standards applied, she said.

At the end of 2015, Rostelecom approved a new dividend policy, under which it will allocate at least 75% of its free cash flow for dividends instead of basing the payouts on its net profit.

The operator will pay at least 45 billion rubles in dividends during 2016–2018.

(76.3264 rubles – U.S. $1)

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