Norilsk Nickel’s shareholders to review dividend policy

Shareholders of Norilsk Nickel have decided on a possible change of their dividend policy: according to the Kommersant’s information, they will abandon the threshold of annual payments in the amount of $2 billion and will tie their size to the debt load. Theoretically, it can hit UC Rusal, to which dividends from Norilsk Nickel help to reduce the debt, but the sources of the Kommersant claim that we shouldn’t expect a serious fall in the payment. However, analysts believe the change is inevitable: the prices of Norilsk Nickel’s metals drop significantly and the company couldn’t pay even 50% of EBITDA without growth in borrowing.

Key shareholders of Norilsk Nickel have reached a preliminary agreement on change of the company's dividend policy, under which the size of the payments will depend on market conditions, the Bloomberg reported yesterday, cited its sources. According to the agency, it was agreed by owner of Interros (30.3% of Norilsk Nickel), general director of Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin and principal shareholder of UC Rusal (the company owns 27.8% of Norilsk Nickel) Oleg Deripaska. Formally, the agreement is not fixed, the change of the dividend policy must be approved by the Board of Directors of UC Rusal, the largest owners of which in addition to En + of Oleg Deripaska are Sual Partners of Viktor Vekselberg and Leonard Blavatnik, ONEXIM of Mikhail Prokhorov and Glencore. The meeting of the Board could take place this week. Another key shareholder of Norilsk Nickel is Crispian Investment Ltd of Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov with 5.87% stake.