Rostelecom to pay 0.43 rubles div on prefs only
MOSCOW. June 27 (Interfax) - Shareholders in Rostelecom voted at their AGM to accept 0.4344 ruble dividends for preferred stock, but to waive dividends for ordinary shares, the telecommunications company said.
The overall dividend payout will be 105.5 million rubles, or 3.05% of 2010 net profits to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS).
Rostelecom will put 2.2 billion rubles (64.03% of net profits) towards increasing its equity.
The dividend will effectively be paid for Q4 2010 as Rostelecom has already paid out interim dividends for Q1-Q3 at 1.1113 rubles per ordinary and 1.6667 rubles per preferred share - for a total of 1.14 billion rubles (32.92% of net profits).
Preferred share dividends are a necessity, as if no year-end dividends are paid on these securities they would get voting rights.
Rostelecom and the OJSC Svyazinvest fixed line subsidiaries that were merged into it on April 1 paid interim dividends for January-September of last year. Prior to the merger date they had made no decisions regarding Q4 dividends.
Rostelecom posted net profits to Russian Accounting Standards (RAS) of 588.4 million rubles in the fourth quarter.
Svyazinvest holds 43.37% of Rostelecom voting shares, Vnesheconombank (VEB) 2.43%, and the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) 7.43%.
Because Rostelecom preferred shares were not involved in the exchange for stock in the operators joined to the company last month, their percentage of overall unified company share capital decreased to 7.6% from 25% of former Rostelecom capital.
The unified Rostelecom owns 2.69% of its own ordinary shares and 28.8% of its prefs. These securities, purchased from minority holders in Rostelecom and the inter-regional companies who were opposed to the merger, are on the balance sheet of Mobitel LLC, in which Rostelecom holds at 99.9% stake.
Rostelecom's charter capital is 2,428,819 rubles split into 2,943,258,269 ordinary and 242,831,469 preferred shares with par value of 0.0025 of a ruble.