Shares in Russia’s largest state-run oil company Rosneft switched to growth in MICEX-RTS trading on Wednesday, after opening lower than yesterday’s close, on news the company plans to pay extra 2011 dividends.
The company will pay additional dividends for 2011 and keep paying 25 percent of profits as dividends thereafter, Rosneft President Igor Sechin said on Wednesday at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
“We support this suggestion and if for 2011 we planned to pay 3.45 rubles per share, this…allows us to pay a dividend of 7.53 rubles a share, or 25 percent of profit and more than twice what was previously planned. And we’ll keep that level permanently,” Sechin said.
The company’s stock traded at an intra-day low of 199.4 rubles on Tuesday’s close or 0.7 percent down and surged 0.6 percent to 201.87 rubles as of 12:18 Moscow time (08:18 GMT) on the dividend news, compared with the MICEX index 0.5 percent falling to 1,383.15 points.
President Vladimir Putin called on the company last week to consider substantially increasing its dividend payouts to raise its attractiveness for investors.