Tele2 to receive 3.7 bln rubles in dividends from St. Petersburg Telecom
MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) - OJSC St. Petersburg Telecom, a subsidiary of Swedish mobile phone company Tele2, will pay out 3.7 billion rubles in dividends for 2011 and the first nine months of 2012, the company said in a statement.
"Payment of dividends is a standard practice for the operating companies of Tele2 Russia," Tele2 spokesman Kirill Alyavdin told Interfax.
He said that since dividends were not paid for 2011, dividends would be paid for the whole period since the previous payments.
Tele2 has not specified the total amount of dividends paid by the group's Russian operating companies.
St. Petersburg Telecom is the only open joint-stock company and bond issuers within the Tele2 Russia group, so the company is obligated to report on dividend decisions.
The financial statements of other subsidiaries of Tele2 Russia Holding AB in the SPARK-Interfax database indicate that ten of the group's 20 operating companies pay dividends. The total amount of dividends paid to the head company last year was about 13.5 billion rubles. The highest amounts of dividends were 3.3 billion rubles paid by Tele2 Omsk, 2.95 billion rubles by Rostov Cellular Communications and 2.16 billion rubles by Tele2 Chelyabinsk.
In addition to dividends, Tele2 subsidiaries finance their parent company with loans. St. Petersburg Telecom in 2010 lent Tele2 Financial Services 33 billion rubles for five years at 9.05% annual interest.
The St. Petersburg company placed several bond issues totalling 26 billion rubles in 2011-2012.
Tele2's Russian business generates 30% of the company's consolidated revenues. Russia became Tele2's biggest market by revenue in the second quarter of this year, overtaking Sweden, which accounts for 29% of consolidated revenue.
Tele2 Russia holds licenses to provide mobile services in 40 regions of the country and has 22.3 million subscribers.
Tele2 Russia increased revenue (before exchange rate differences) by 14% to SEK3.26 billion ($489 million) in the third quarter of 2012 from SEK2.86 billion in the same period of 2011. EBITDA rose 2% to SEK1.24 billion ($186 million), and the EBITDA margin dropped to 38% from 40%.