MTS stockholders okay 30.17 bln rubles in 2012 dividends
MOSCOW. June 25 (Interfax) - The stockholders in Russian 'big-three' telecoms operator OJSC Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) voted Tuesday in favor of 2012 dividends of 14.6 rubles per share, for a total of 30.17 billion rubles, an Interfax correspondent present at their meeting reported.
That represents 70% of MTS's 42.95 billion in net profits earned last year.
At the end of April, the MTS board of directors confirmed a new version of dividend policy envisioning dividends growth an average of 30% in 2013-2015 as compared with the preceding three-year period. Total dividends in 2013-2015 will run to at least 120 billion rubles.
In addition to the annual dividends, MTS intends to pay out interim dividends for the first half of this year. The approximate amount of these is 11 billion rubles, and the final amount will depend on the company's financial figures for H1.
As a result, aggregate dividends for this year are expected to top 40 billion rubles, as per dividend policy. There should be an EGM at which stockholders will address H2 dividends in H2.
MTS's new dividend policy involves pegging the payout to free cash flow. The minimum payout is to be determined as the largest of either 75% of free cash flow to US GAAP at least or 40 billion rubles. The new policy establishes the possibility of paying interim dividends.
The company's free cash flow increased to $1.28 billion last year from $1.026 billion the year before. The company's dividend payments this year, including interim dividends, will be 41 billion rubles, or $1.3 billion.
Previous MTS dividend policy linked the payout to the size of net profits - not less than 50% as dividends. Traditionally, MTS paid out 60%-70% of net profits in dividends. However, the end 2012 net-profit figure was affected by "paper loss" in Q2 of $682 million that came about with the write-off of the company's Uzbek business. This caused net profits to contract 30% to $1 billion. The company decided to peg dividends to free cash flow.
MTS paid out 14.7-ruble dividends for 2011, totaling $1.04 billion and representing 72% of net profit, 14.5-ruble dividends (78% of profit) for 2010, and 15.4-ruble dividends (75%) for 2009. The company has not paid interim dividends before.
MTS charter capital is split into 2,066,413,144 ordinary shares with par value of 0.1 of a ruble. The company's main stockholder is AFK Sistema with 50.8%. The remaining shares trade on the NYSE and Moscow Exchange .
