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Bonus for Naspers Russian associate

Johannesburg - Naspers's Russian associate, Mail.ru, plans to pay $899m in special dividends next month after reducing its stake in Facebook and exiting investments in Groupon and Zynga, Business Day reported on Wednesday.

"It's positive that the company decided to pay out almost all cash from its balance sheet to shareholders instead of potentially wasting it on acquisitions," said Konstantin Belov, an analyst at Ural-Sib Capital in Moscow.

Mail.ru, controlled by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov and part-owned by China's Tencent Holdings and SA's Naspers [JSE:NPN], will pay investors $4.30 a share as of March 20, the Moscow-based company said on Tuesday.

Net income rose 37% last year to 8.5 billion roubles ($278m), Mail.ru said.

Revenue jumped 39% to 21.2 billion roubles, led by paid additional services in social networks and games.

Mail.ru sold a stake in Facebook for about $320m in October, reducing its holding. It currently stands at about 0.6% according to Mail.ru. It also fully disposed of 4.1% ownership in e-commerce operator Groupon and a 1.2% stake in game developer Zynga during the fourth quarter.

The company said it expected a revenue growth of 25% to 28% this year, according to the Bloomberg report used.  

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