Serbia's NIS to pay first dividend since Gazprom Neft took control

“On the basis of our policy and the fact that we have straightened losses from previous years, we can expect a dividend payout,” the CEO of NIS, Kiril Kravchenko, said in an interview published on the company’s website.

NIS's long-term strategy, approved in June, provides for a minimum 15% of the profit to be distributed to the shareholders. In the last years the company had to use profits for covering accumulated losses.

The company reported an 18.6% jump in its 2012 nine-month net profit to 32.2 billion dinars ($370.2 million/283 million euro) on revenues of 162 billion dinars.

NIS (www.nis.rs), 56.15%-owned by Russia's Gazprom Neft and 29.9% by the Serbian state, is one of the largest vertically integrated companies in Southeast Europe. Its main activities include the exploration, production and processing of oil and gas, as well as the production and retail of a wide range of petroleum products.

(1 euro=113.7738 Serbian dinars)