In X5 explained the approach to payment of dividends
When deciding on dividends, X5 takes into account current financial performance. The company’s dividend policy is not clearly linked to free cash flow or net income
When deciding on dividends, X5 does not focus on the end of the payout period, but on the current financial position of the company. About this on the air of the program "Markets.Main" on the TV channel and Radio RBC told the Director of corporate finance and work with investors X5 Polina Ugryumova.
“We do not look in the rear-view mirror. We are not saying that the year is over and we have finished it with such and such leverage, with such a level of profit or with such and such a level of EBITDA or free cash flow, and depending on this level we will pay such and such a size of dividends. Because from the moment when the year is over, to the moment when we decide to pay dividends, it takes six months. In our current macroeconomic realities, as the experience of the last one and a half to two years shows, a lot can change in six months, Ugryumova explained.
X5 pays dividends twice a year. According to the top manager, the company regulates the final debt load by winter payment, with which it should finish the year.
In early November, the X5 board of directors announced a nine-month 2026 dividend of ы204 per share. At current prices, this gives about 8.6% of the dividend yield. Polina Ugryumova expects that with such dividends and X5 cash flow forecasts for the fourth quarter, the company’s debt load will be about 1.3x by the end of the year in terms of net debt/EBITDA.
Ugryumova refused to give a benchmark for the final payment for 2026, but noted that X5 has a goal to continue paying dividends.
According to the current divisional policy of the retailer, approved in March 2025:
X5 pays dividends twice a year at the end of nine months and at the end of the year; the decision on the amount of dividend is made on the basis of free cash flow with a target net debt / EBITDA ratio at the end of the year at least 1.2x and no more than 1.4x; the dividend size is not clearly linked to free cash flow (FCF) or net profit; dividends are not paid if the current or forecast value of the ratio net debt / EBITDA exceeds 2x.
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