The Empirical Evaluation of the Factors of The Dividend Policy of The Russian Public Companies

The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences in the dividend policy of the Russian state- and private-owned public companies. To achieve this goal, was held a review of domestic and foreign research on the empirical evaluation of the factors of the dividend policy of companies operating in developed and emerging markets. Basic theories considered for payment policy: the behavioral, the signaling, the client, the agency and the "bird in the hand". For the purposes of the study was formed the sample from the one hundred largest Russian companies by market capitalization at the end of 2015. Companies - dividend payers were divided into 2 groups according to the type of majority ownership - public and private. During the work it was found that Russian private public companies set a target level of dividend payments, and then approaching it rapidly. State Russian public companies establish a policy payout, based on the state of the federal budget, and pay higher dividends in the deficit years. Private companies, on the contrary, pay higher dividends in surplus years. The financial leverage, the expected growth rate of the net profit and the profitability of the Moscow stock exchange index have different effects on the dividend policy of private and public corporations. The impact of the return on equity on the dividend policy of private and public Russian public companies is practically the same. There is a direct (inverse) relationship between the yield of the Moscow stock exchange index and the amount of the dividends payable for private-owned (state-owned) Russian public companies.