“Companies are expected to be more cautious as far as dividends are concerned this year, because they need liquidities in the future,” said Florin Ilie, Head of Equity Markets at ING Bank Romania. Petrom distributed a gross dividend of RON 0.0191 (€0.00448) per share for the 2007 financial year, up 6.7 percent year-on-year. Dividends totaled RON 1.082 billion (€0.253 bln) in 2007, 61 percent of the company’s net profit. Most of these dividends were cashed in by OMV, the firm’s majority shareholder, while the Ministry of Economy and Fondul Proprietatea, a fund established to compensate persons whose assets were confiscated by the communist regime, totaled 47 percent of Petrom’s dividends.
Financial investment companies (SIF) could make a similar decision, considering they are expecting to receive lower dividends from the enterprises included in their portfolios. “Considering the year which ended and the one that has just begun, all commercial companies may grant lower dividends for 2008. We do not yet know if we will have the necessary liquidities to grant a certain dividend, considering we are expecting lower dividends ourselves,” said Tudor Buzatu, member in the Board of Directors of SIF Oltenia.
