Repsol Plans To Pay $1.8 Bln Extraordinary Dividend After YPF Payout

(RTTNews) - Spanish oil company Repsol SA (REPYY) said Monday that plans to pay an extraordinary dividend of one euro per share after Argentina paid the company more than $6 billion in compensation for nationalizing YPF SA (YPF).

Based on its outstanding shares of about 1.3 billion, Repsol will pay a total of 1.3 billion euros, or $1.8 billion, for the extraordinary dividend.

In a statement, Repsol said, "In addition to the capital increase to implement the shareholder remuneration program "Repsol Flexible Dividend" (scrip dividend) referred to in the press released published last May 13, the Company also intends to submit for the consideration of the next meeting of its Board of Directors the payment of an extraordinary dividend of one euro per share."

Repsol added that it will announce details of this dividend as soon as it is approved by the board of directors. The company's monthly board meeting is slated to be held on Wednesday, May 28.

The Argentinian Government compensated Repsol for expropriation of the 51 percent controlling stake it had in YPF that was nationalized in May 2012. The government's move to re-nationalize YPF, which provides about a third of the country's oil and a quarter of its gas requirements, came a year after YPF announced the discovery of large swathes of shale oil and gas fields.

Repsol said last Friday that it has completed the sale process of its assets in Argentina after it sold to JPMorgan Securities the remainder of the BODEN 2015 securities that were held by the company with a nominal value of $117.36 million. The securities were part of the means of payments in the compensation obtained by Repsol for the expropriation of 51 percent of YPF and YPF Gas.

From the sale of the entire holding of Argentinean bonds, Repsol obtained a total of $5 billion in compensation for the expropriation. The company noted that this extinguished the $5 billion debt recognized by Argentina.

In addition, Repsol sold the 0.48 percent stake of YPF that it still owned following the sale on May 7 of 11.86 percent of the share capital of the Argentinean company. Total revenue from the sale of 12.34 percent of YPF was $1.31 billion.

The combined effect of these transactions, including interest payments, represented total revenue of $6.31 billion.

REPYY closed Friday's trading at $27.59, down $0.13 or 0.47 percent on a volume of 38,554 shares.