Empirical Study of the Dividend Policy of Russian Companies at the Present Stage

Abstract

Many of the theoretical issues related to the company's dividend policy are highly debatable and sometimes controversial. This article presents the results of an empirical analysis of dividend payments of 50 large Russian public companies for the period from 2011 to 2018. The main source of information in the formation of the empirical base was the data of the annual accounting statements of public companies. During the study, hypotheses about the interrelations of dividend payments and market capitalization, as well as performance indicators and indicators that characterize financial and investment policies had been tested. According to the results, a number of analyzed factors, including revenue, the presence of the state and foreign investors in the ownership structure, financial leverage ratio, the absorption factor per cent, and return on invested capital turned out to be statistically insignificant. Among factors that have a statistically significant association with the dividend payments are market capitalization, net profit, return on assets, return on equity, average total assets. In the course of substantiating and making dividend payout decisions, company management should evaluate, predict and take into account the intricacies of dividend payments with financial and investment decisions. At the same time, the main task of management is to find the optimal amount of dividend payments and thus to meet the expectations of shareholders.