Ukraine to allow repatriation of all dividends for 2014-2015

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is going to satisfy all the demands of international investors for the repatriation of their dividends for 2014-2015 from Ukrainian companies this year, NBU Head Valeria Gontareva told journalists on May 26. “We do not see large amounts, as the years were not very profitable,” she said, as cited by Interfax-Ukraine.

Recall, a ban on purchases of hard currency for dividend repatriation abroad was introduced in late 2014 during a currency shock. A month ago, the NBU requested Ukrainian banks to collect by May 20 information from their clients on their intention to pay dividends abroad. After analyzing this information, the NBU will prepare a schedule of dividend transfer abroad.

Alexander Paraschiy: We learned from the NBU earlier that it estimated possible demand for dividend repatriation at USD 0.5-0.6 bln. From Gontareva’s statement, we conclude that real demand is below its expectations, possibly within the range of our estimate of USD 0.4-0.5 bln. This does not look like a painful amount for the Ukrainian ForEx market – e.g. it’s less than the amount of dollars that the NBU purchased on the market over the last 30 days (USD 0.53 bln). We expect repatriation of the dividends for 2014-2015 may start as soon as June 2016. The key question now is when the NBU will remove restrictions on dividend repatriation for future periods.