Modern trends in the development of dividend policy of Russian companies

One of the characteristic of effective management is a well-balanced and rigidly observed dividend policy, which consults the interests of both a company and its shareholders. The problems of dividend policy in domestic companies had been considered of secondary importance for a long time because managers were to achieve completely different goals, initially connected with the “survival” of enterprises and then, in case of successful solution of the first task, they were to deal with the expansion of business. Reaching an acceptable solution regarding the second task is impossible without the attraction of new investments. However, would-be investors are interested in the predictability and transparency of dividend decisions and dividend policy of the company. Therefore, companies begin paying more attention to the problems of relationships with investors and start to elaborate a long-term dividend policy. Nowadays most of the companies in Russia have their own long-term dividend strategies, which are enshrined in the Dividend Policy Regulation. But provisions of such bylaws are not observed in some cases. Today dividend policy adapts to the constantly evolving situation, and its rules often remain a dead letter. In this article we conduct the comparative analysis of dividend payments in 2014 and 2015, which are included in the list of “blue chips” in the Moscow Central Stock Exchange. We also formulate the factors, which prompted companies to pay high dividends while net profit collapse, and predict the possibility of strengthening the practice of introduction of such policy by Russian companies in the foreseeable future.