VTB will pay dividends 20 times less than Sberbank

VTB will pay shareholders at the end of 2019 only 10% of the bank's net profit, or 20.12 billion rubles. The state bank's payments will be 20 times less than Sberbank's dividend payments.

Initially, VTB planned, like Sberbank, to pay 50% of net profit under IFRS, but in early August it adjusted plans, reducing them to 10%. The dividend yield on VTB shares will eventually amount to only 1.9% instead of the planned 9.7%.

100% of dividends on preferred shares and 60.9% on ordinary shares of VTB will be received by the state, another 39.1% of dividends on ordinary shares will be received by minority shareholders. VTB's largest minority shareholder, Otkritie Bank, has already stated that it is disappointed with the decision on dividends for 2019. As Mikhail Zadornov, the head of Otkritie, told Interfax, with such a dividend yield, it will be very difficult for the state bank to expect growth in line with the market.

In 2018, VTB paid more dividends - 15% of net profit under IFRS, or 26.8 billion rubles.

• Today, Sberbank announced that it will pay record dividends for 2019 — 50% of IFRS net profit will be directed to them, shareholders will receive 422.4 billion rubles. The State Bank increased payments - at the end of 2018, shareholders received 361.4 billion rubles, or 43.5% of net profit under IFRS.