Russia's Finance Ministry confirms positive outlook for dividends for 2025 budget, several companies to resume payments

MOSCOW. Oct 22 (Interfax) - Russia's Finance Ministry has confirmed the positive forecasts for dividend payments to the federal budget next year.

"We somehow managed to cope with the task at one point [by increasing payments from state-owned companies, including by fixing the share of profits allocated to dividends at 50%], and then we relaxed slightly, first because of Covid, and then because of specific circumstances, the sanctions campaigns. I mean dividends from companies with state participation," Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said at the "Tolk" finance and investment conference organized by TBank .

"I certainly expect that we should see a considerably better performance in this area in 2025. We should see that several companies that did not pay dividends would resume paying dividends. I think that we should be able to provide the dividend flow at a higher level, though many companies have continued paying out decent dividends even now," Moiseyev said.

As reported, the Finance Ministry has included cautiously optimistic expectations in the draft three-year budget that is currently under consideration in the State Duma. Specifically, dividend revenues for state-owned shares and stakes should gradually increase, though the growth rate will likely be moderate.

Revenues from this item are currently estimated at 755.8 billion rubles in 2024, accounting for dividends from the largest payer, Sberbank , whose shares are in the National Wealth Fund (NWF). This is approximately 100 billion rubles more than the 652.3 billion rubles that have been budgeted for the current year of 2024 and in the current three-year budget planned for 2025-2026.

The indicator should rise approximately 4% year-on-year to 786.44 billion rubles in 2025. Revenues should be nearly unchanged at 788.5 billion rubles in 2026, and they should increase slightly below 6% year-on-year to 834.2 billion rubles in 2027.

In addition to Sberbank, Transneft and Rosneftegaz state holding are the main contributors to the budget in terms of dividends.