UPDATE: Report: Russia’s Uralkali may resume paying divs if debt falls

(Updates data on the company’s free-float in paragraph 4, adds details in two last paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Oct 18 (PRIME) -- Russian fertilizer producer Uralkali may resume paying dividends if its debt burden of U.S. $5.832 billion falls, Dmitry Mazepin, a co-owner of one of Uralkali’s major shareholder UralChem, said in an interview to Rossiya 24 television channel broadcast Tuesday.

“(We may resume paying dividends) when we cut the debt burden to an acceptable level,” he said answering a corresponding question.

The company has not paid any dividends since the distribution of interim dividends for January–September 2013

Mazepin also said that the company may announce a mandatory share buyback if its free-float falls below 5% from the current 5.61%. “Only a small amount is left, but we will do it after coordination with the bank. We will be able to do a mandatory buyback when we are comfortable,” he said.

Uralkali’s core-shareholders are Belarusian businessman Dmitry Lobyak with a 20% stake and UralChem with a 19.99% stake. Lobyak, who bought the stake in July from Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim Group, owns company Yuras Oil, an official distributor of UralChem in Belarus.

Uralkali has been regularly buying back its shares from the market. During the most recent buyback, the company bought 3.35% of the capital from May 19 through September 19. Uralkali also carried out three more buyback programs in 2015–2016 and bought back shares and global depositary receipts accounting for 38.43% in the company for U.S. $3.9 billion.

Previously, the company said that the Moscow Exchange may decrease the tier of the company’s shares quotation list to 3 from 1 and the company may delist shares from the bourse. The Moscow Exchange’s rules say that the bourse may decrease the tier of the quotation list if a company’s free-float stays below 7.5% for at least six months.

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