VTB Returns to Dividends After Four Years: Shareholders Approve a Record 275.8 Billion Rouble Payout

On Tuesday, July 1, 2025, the annual general meeting of shareholders of VTB, one of Russia’s largest banks, approved the first dividends in four years: 25.58 roubles per ordinary share and a record 275.8 billion roubles in total, equal to 50% of the bank’s net profit under IFRS for 2024. The previous payout was made on the results of 2020.

A record payout after a four-year pause

According to the bank’s materials, the supervisory board recommended resuming dividends in late April 2025, against market expectations. The parameters approved by the meeting were as follows:

• ordinary shares: 25.58 roubles per share, 137.4 billion roubles in total;
• first-type preference shares: 0.002654 roubles per share;
• second-type preference shares: 0.026540 roubles per share, with preference dividends totalling 138.4 billion roubles;
• the record date for holders entitled to the dividend: July 11, 2025.

The total is a record for the bank: VTB’s IFRS net profit for 2024 reached 551.4 billion roubles, and the dividend equals half of that sum. By comparison, the previous payout on the results of 2020 amounted to 32.74 billion roubles, of which 18.15 billion roubles went to ordinary shareholders — the new payout is roughly 8.4 times larger. The news agency Interfax (Interfax) reported the meeting’s decision in its July 1 dispatch, and Kommersant (Kommersant) confirmed the figures in a same-day article.

The state stake and the shipbuilding link

The state holds 61.8% of VTB through ordinary and preference shares and will receive 223.2 billion roubles of the dividend. Under a decree signed in June by President Vladimir Putin, federal budget dividend income from the bank for 2024–2028 is directed to financing the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), which VTB manages under trust. Bank head Andrei Kostin said the money could go to a new investment project and to repaying the shipbuilder’s loan.

Larger shareholders in the past also included the sovereign oil fund of Azerbaijan and Qatar’s Qatar Holding LLC; current disclosure of the shareholder register is restricted because of Western sanctions against the bank.

Why regularity may stick

First deputy chairman of the management board Dmitry Pyanov, speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2025, argued that tying USC’s financing to dividends raises the chances of regular payouts. “The appointment of VTB as manager of USC’s assets is a pro-dividend factor… We have no other way of financing it except dividends,” he told Interfax, adding that the decree “increases the pressure for regular dividend payments”.

Pyanov also recalled that the group turned to the capital market for new capital in 2023 and again in 2025 — which is hard to do without dividends — and that accumulated net profit has now covered the 2022 losses, so regular payouts should become the group’s normal mode of operation.

What it means for investors

For minority holders, the resumption matters less as a one-off sum than as a signal: the bank has returned to distributing profit after covering the 2022 losses, and the state’s interest in a stable dividend stream tied to shipbuilding financing works in favour of continuity. The next test will be the dividend policy for the results of 2025, where capital adequacy, new capital raising and the state’s financing needs will have to be balanced.