Sberbank is thinking about buyback – Kommersant FM
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The head of Sberbank, German Gref, told Interfax about the possibility of purchasing securities from non-residents, however, he made a reservation that there are no specific plans for this initiative yet. Nevertheless, the company’s shares on the Moscow Exchange immediately rose by 1%. In the spring, the organization reported that non-residents owned approximately a third of all outstanding shares. Their redemption, taking into account the discount established by the government, could cost about 1 trillion rubles, Sber CIB reported. For comparison, this is more than the profit of a financial organization for the entire year.
How will the buyback affect investors? The head of the investment company Ivolga Capital, Andrei Khokhrin, believes that this is rather good news for paper holders inside Russia:
“The time for this has more or less arrived. Sberbank is in profit. Then, in general, the question is whether he will simply pay more taxes, or will try to somehow exploit this money differently.
This should be attempted in any case, because non-residents will not return to Sberbank in the foreseeable future, because there is no point in owning a company if diplomatic relations are on the verge of breakdown.
At the same time, the purchase will again be at some kind of discount. Practice has shown that a 50 percent discount is perceived by non-residents almost as happiness, because otherwise they will not receive anything.
What is the benefit of this whole operation? Yes, money was spent on them for redemption, shares were purchased cheaper than the market, but in the future these securities can be offered to other players, including retail investors in Russia. For example, as an option, again hold a public secondary offering of securities, and make the difference profit.
In addition, there is no need to buy back all the shares at once. There may be no need to place assets on the market.
As for how much the security will cost, in any case, both repurchase from non-residents at a lower price and a potential increase in the supply of shares on the market are factors that negatively affect capitalization, that is, the potential of the securities will be lower. But there’s no getting around it.”
In mid-September 2023, Magnit completed a deal to buy out shares from non-residents, and LUKOIL also announced these plans.
Against this background, the Ministry of Finance announced new obligations for issuers: the department expects that at least part of the repurchased shares will return to the Russian market. Exactly which part and for what price is unknown.
But for Sberbank, as the largest Russian lender, the conditions may be different, admits Yaroslav Kabakov, director of strategy at Finam:
“The stake that they will buy from unfriendly non-residents may well be sold to friendly non-residents, and in fact the Russian market may not see this volume of securities. Because Sber’s dividend yield is now potentially higher than the market.
In this regard, I think there will be a fairly large number of institutional investors interested in such an acquisition.
At the same time, I believe that certain relations with foreign investors can be maintained, but for unfriendly non-residents all these amounts of funds have long been written off.
The repurchase, if it happens, will be at a 50 percent discount for unfriendly holders of Sberbank shares, which is also not strong, so let’s say, a positive thing.”
The controlling stake in the company belongs to the state. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov previously complained that some banks do not want to pay dividends, but the department is “working on it.”
The official said that in Russia creditors already enjoy a privileged position, since in other countries the tax on such organizations is higher than the market average.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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