Mechel board recommends 2022 dividend waiver

MOSCOW. June 2 (Interfax) - The board of directors at Mechel has recommended that no dividends be paid on any category of shares for 2022, the Russian coal and metals company said.

The board decided "not to liquidate the loss of 33.3 million rubles received in 2022 and to leave it on Mechel's balance sheet.

This year's annual shareholders' meeting takes place on June 30, with shareholders on record as of June 6 eligible to vote.

Mechel's charter states the company pay holder of preferred shares 20% of net profit to International Financial Reporting Standards. Analysts at the My Investments Telegram channel said they did not think Mechel would pay dividends on prefs for 2022 because the company did not have enough net assets to do so based on financial reporting to Russian Accounting Standards.

Mechel has not unveiled reporting to IFRS for 2022. Analysts at BCS Investment World said EBITDA might have risen 5% to $1.8 billion and net profit, based on reporting by the group's key companies, might have been $1.1 billion. Net debt should have fallen $900 million during 2022 to $2.6 billion.

Mechel paid 1.17 rubles per preferred share for 2020, 3.48 rubles per preferred share for 2019, and 18.21 rubles per preferred share for 2018. Payments for 2017 were 16.66 rubles per share, and payments for 2016 were 10.28 rubles per share. From 2012 to 2015, the company paid nominal dividends on preferred shares, so that they would not become voting shares.

Mechel did not pay 2021 dividends against the backdrop of a six-month bankruptcy waiver introduced by the Russian government on April 1, 2022.

The company has not paid dividends on ordinary shares since 2012.

Mechel's charter capital is divided into 416,270,745 ordinary shares, as well as 138,756,915 preferred shares. Mechel subsidiary Skyblock Limited owns 40% of the preferred shares. Igor Zyuzin and his family are the beneficiaries of 51.54% of Mechel's ordinary shares.