Bashneft prepared to pay half of earnings as dividends if instructed to - chairman
MOSCOW. April 8 (Interfax) - Bashneft is prepared to pay half of its net profit as dividends for last year if instructed to do so, Deputy Energy Minister Alexei Teksler, who chairs the oil company's board of directors, told reporters.
"If there's a directive on increasing dividends to 50% of profit, then we'll pay," he said.
For now, Bashneft is planning to pay 20 billion rubles for 2015, he said.
The board of directors plans to consider dividends when it meets on April 26.
Bashneft's net profit grew 35% last year to 58.2 billion rubles, so the company will pay 29.1 billion rubles of that to shareholders if the dividend threshold is raised to 50%.
Bashneft's strategy envisages that the company pays 25% of net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) but not less than 20 billion rubles.
A draft resolution on state companies paying half of their net profit in dividends was submitted to the government last week, a Russian Federal Property Agency (Rosimuschestvo) official said last week. The draft states that the lower threshold for dividends paid in 2016 will be 50% of net profit for 2015. This would be in effect for one year only.