Page 68 - Russia OUTLOOK 2022

It follows the last big IPO of 2021, Renaissance Insurance, one of Russia’s leading diversified universal insurance companies and another in the vanguard of the increasing number of financial services companies coming to market.
The IPO bonanza has seen exchanges wooing Russian companies hoping to go public. NYSE, Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange are trying to attract new Russian members after Ozon listed shares on Nasdaq in November, successfully tapping into the deep US pool of tech investors.
• Dividends
The Russian equity market continues to be one of the best dividend payers in the world and will continue that into 2022, with the MSCI Russia index showing the best expected dividend yield of 9.4%, as compared to 7.9% for MSCI Brazil, 6.3% for MSCI Turkey and 3% for MSCI EM, Vedomosti daily wrote citing Aton Equity 2022 report.
For 2022 the dividend yield is expected to rise to a whopping 10.2%. That implies an end of 2022 RTS target of 2250 (2100 ex-dividends), most of which is payable by mid-2023.
As followed by bne IntelliNews, the Russian equity market was expected to retain its status as a global top dividend market in 2H21 and going into 2022.
Aton expects the companies on the RTS Index to yield 8.7% in dividends in 2021, making the record-high dividend yield for the past 10 years in observation. The yield is seen going up by 1 percentage point (pp) to 9.7% in 2022.
The average yield of the Moscow Exchange in 2012-2021 stands at 18%, Aton estimates, with the dividends accounting for 6% of the return.
Aton sees about 20 liquid blue chips on Russian equity with a yield of over 11%, with the dividend play seen by the analysts as one of the best long-term strategies for investors.
In the segment breakdown, Oil and Gas is expected to yield 10-11% in dividends, including Gazprom, Metals and Mining with over 10% yield for top names. In the financial sector VTB and Sber banks are expected to yield 14% and 8-10% in dividends respectively.
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