RusTele.com

North-West Telecom could slash preferred share dividends 68% for 2008

ST. PETERSBURG. May 15 (Interfax) - The board of directors at Russia's North-West Telecom (NWT) has recommended that shareholders vote to approve dividend payments of 0.617 rubles per common share for 2008 and 1.282 rubles for preferred shares, the company said in a statement.
NWT paid out 0.642 rubles per common share for 2007 and 3.997 rubles per preferred share, thus the 2008 payments could be 3.9% and 67.7% less, respectively.
The company could spend a total of 864.05 million rubles on dividends for 2008, or 44.8% less than it spent for 2007 dividends.
NWT has charter capital of 1.131 billion rubles split into 881.045 million common shares and 250.369 million preferred shares with par value of one ruble.
The company posted net profit under Russian accounting standards (RAS) of 646.08 million rubles in 2008, down 67.7% from 2007.
North-West Telecom is a fixed-line operator in Russia's northwest region. Svyazinvest owns 39.528% of the company's charter capital and 50.76% of its voting shares.