MOSCOW, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia's largest bank Sberbank expects its net profit in 2025 to grow by about 6 percent year-on-year and aims to set a new record for dividend payments in 2026, its CEO Herman Gref said on Monday, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
"This year we paid 787 billion rubles (about 9.68 billion U.S. dollars) in dividends, a record for the Russian market. No company in history has ever paid that much," Gref said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. "We hope to beat that record next year. We expect our profit this year to be around six percentage points higher than last year, so next year's dividends will also be higher," he said.
Sberbank reported a record net profit of 1.58 trillion rubles (about 19.4 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024 under the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Under its current dividend policy, the bank distributes 50 percent of its IFRS net profit as dividends, provided that its total capital adequacy ratio under Russian Accounting Standards remains at or above 13.3 percent.
The Russian government controls 52.32 percent of the bank's ordinary shares, equivalent to 50 percent plus one share of its authorized capital. ■
