MegaFon to determine 2013 dividends in April or May
MOSCOW. March 5 (Interfax) - The board of directors at OJSC MegaFon will address the dividends to be paid for 2013 next month or the month after, and management will subsequently render its recommendation, the telecommunications operator's CFO Gevork Vermishyan said during a press conference.
Vermishyan said that MegaFon will be sticking with its earlier-announced dividend policy. The company said last year that in 2014 it would move to paying dividends for the previous financial year in the middle of the year and for the first half of the current year at year-end.
MegaFon paid 54.17-ruble dividends for 2012 and 10.34-ruble dividends for Q1 2013. For 2012, the telco paid its shareholders 33.6 billion rubles in all, and for Q1 of last year - 6.4 billion rubles.
The company's dividend policy envisions paying out 70% of free cash flow or 50% of net profits for a given year as long as its debt/EBITDA ratio remains at 1.2-1.5.
MegaFon's net profits increased 16.3% to 51.6 billion rubles in 2013. The company ended the year with free cash flow of 82.3 billion rubles.
With operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) of 132.6 billion rubles, the net debt to OIBDA ratio was 0.78 at end-2013.
