Gazprom Neft sees raising dividends to 20 rubles/share in future as realistic - CFO
MOSCOW. Feb 7 (Interfax) - Gazprom Neft believes it is realistic to increase dividends to 20 rubles per share in future, the Russian oil company's CFO, Alexei Yankevich said at Gazprom's Investor Day in New York.
"Our total shareholder return, which is composed of the growth of the share price and dividend return, is one of the best in the industry. And going forward our focus is to maintain a competitive market dividend return. And we also have strong possibilities for increasing both dividends per share and dividend return," Yankevich said.
"As you recall, for 2016 we paid 10.68 rubles per share. Already for [2017] we expect virtually more than 14 rubles per share. We've already paid out 10 rubles as interim dividends; they were announced for the nine months. And we also expect final dividends to be at a fairly good level, which will give us more than 30%-40% growth of dividends per share in 2017," he said.
"Going forward to 2020, taking into account the growth prospects for both net profit and dividend return, dividends per share will increase and I think that it's quite realistic for us to reach 20 rubles," Yankevich said.