Page 93 - bne IntelliNews Russia OUTLOOK 2025

Dividend growth anticipated
Despite the challenges in commission income and rising operating expenses, MOEX's net profit for 2024 is forecast to reach RUB83.9bn, delivering a RoE of 34%. Analysts expect a dividend of RUB24.4 per share for 2024, yielding 13% at current prices. Looking ahead to 2025, with continued tight monetary policy and a normalisation in operating expense growth, net profit is projected to rise to RUB103.5bn (RoE of 36%), supporting dividend growth to RUB30.6 per share, equating to a 16% yield.
This robust outlook highlights MOEX's resilience and growth potential amid shifting market dynamics and a challenging economic environment.
Gazprom shares fell to a 16-year low on December 17
First, it is not only Gazprom that is falling, but the entire Russian market. Since the beginning of the year, the Moscow Exchange index has already lost more than 23%. Gazprom's weight in it is 11%. Due to the double-digit key rate, with which the Central Bank is trying to contain inflation, deposit rates are steadily growing, and putting money in the bank at 22% per annum has become a much more attractive option for Russians compared to the stock market.
Secondly, the contract for the supply of Russian gas via Ukraine expired on December 31 – in all likelihood, it will not be extended. There is also no agreement on selling gas to Europe via TurkStream in January, Kommersant reminds. Despite all the sanctions, at the beginning of the year the share of Russian gas in EU imports was 19%.
The third reason is dividends. Gazprom's dividend policy stipulates that the company must give shareholders at least 50% of adjusted net profit, but if the net debt to EBITDA ratio exceeds 2.5x, dividends may be lower. Based on the results of the first nine months of 2024, the debt burden ratio was projected at 2.3x. But Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in early December that dividends from Gazprom were not included in the budget.
In 2008, the head of the concern Alexey Miller dreamed that in 10 years, due to high gas prices, Gazprom would become the most expensive company in the world with a capitalisation of $1 trillion. But now the company may not set itself such ambitious goals: the company is not threatened with raising capital on the stock exchange in the near future.
93 Russia OUTLOOK 2025 www.intellinews.com