Another company of the Russian cellular "big three" - Vimpelcom Ltd. - has also been paying interim dividends since 2010. In 2012, this holding paid slightly more than $2 billion, including $1.4 billion in excess dividends from funds received from its largest shareholder, Altimo, which paid for the conversion of Vimpelcom's preferred shares into ordinary shares. And Megafon , which paid its first dividends in its entire existence (including the first quarter of 2012) in April 2012, has now decided to pay dividends not only for the remaining three quarters of 2012, but also for the first quarter of 2013. The dividends amounted to a slightly smaller sum than MTS - 40 billion rubles. Megafon did not rule out then that interim dividends could be paid in the future.

OJSC Mobile TeleSystems

Telecom operator. The main shareholder is AFK Sistema (52.8%). Capitalization is $19.64 billion. Financial indicators (US GAAP, 2012): revenue - $12.4 billion, net profit - $1 billion.

MTS shareholders will have to approve the payment of the first interim dividends in the company's history, the operator announced on Friday. The board of directors scheduled an extraordinary shareholders' meeting for September 30 and recommended that they approve dividend payments of 5.22 rubles per share and 10.44 rubles per American depositary receipt (ADR), for a total of 10.8 billion rubles. The list of shareholders to participate in the meeting will be compiled as of August 14, 2013.

Until now, MTS had been paying dividends only once a year, calculating the amount of payments from net profit (they had to be at least 50% of this figure). But in April 2013, its board of directors approved a new dividend policy: the operator promised that in 2013-2015 it would annually return to shareholders at least 75% of free cash flow for the previous year (according to US GAAP) - at least 40 billion rubles. At the same time, the board recommended allocating the amount of 30.2 billion rubles (14.6 rubles per share, or 29.2 rubles per ADR) to dividend payments for 2012 - this is just a little more than 75% of MTS's free cash flow for the previous year (amounted to $1.284 billion, or 39.9 billion rubles at the average exchange rate for 2012). But at the same time, the company promised that in the fall it would pay out about 11 billion rubles more. Thus, in 2013, MTS will transfer 41 billion rubles to shareholders - this is 2.8% more than free cash flow and is a record payment in the history of MTS (see chart).

If previously shareholders of cellular companies received profit from the growth of share prices, now the market growth phase is over and the main interest for shareholders is participation in the distribution of profits of cellular companies, says analyst of IFC Metropol Evgeny Golosnoy. And interim dividends allow interest in the company's shares to be maintained throughout the year, he explains.

On Friday, MTS ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange rose slightly in price - by 0.3% to $19.75.

MTS to pay additional amount to shareholders