Norilsk Nickel Announces $1.33Bln in Dividends

Norilsk Nickel said Thursday that its board recommended that the company pay $1.33 billion in dividends for 2009, or 210 rubles ($6.80) per share, less than half the amount proposed by shareholder United Company RusAl.

RusAl, which owns 25 percent of Norilsk, had called on the company to pay out $3 billion, exceeding its profit for the year, CEO Vladimir Strzhalkovsky told reporters.

Norilsk's board agreed to pay out 50 percent of last year's $2.65 billion net income, he said.

"We believe that today's financial state of Norilsk Nickel provides for an opportunity to pay much higher dividends," RusAl said in an e-mailed statement.

Norilsk's board also approved a program to sell as much as 100 billion rubles ($3.24 billion) of bonds in several tranches, chief financial officer Dmitry Kostoyev said.

The miner's shares rose 4.7 percent on the MICEX, outperforming the exchange's metals and mining index, which rose 2.5 percent.