Latest news with #GermanGref
Reuters
22-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Russia's Sberbank says board recommends record dividend for 2024
MOSCOW, April 22 (Reuters) - Russia's largest lender Sberbank ( opens new tab said on Tuesday that its board recommended paying a record high 786.9 billion roubles ($9.68 billion) in dividends. The dividend will amount to 34.84 roubles ($0.4285) per share for 2024. Russian banks' profits increased last year due to accelerated lending, which has since declined in response to the central bank raising its key interest rate. "This is another record in both the history of Sber and the Russian market," Sberbank's CEO German Gref said in a statement. "We will allocate half of this amount to the state, and the other half to our two million retail investors, for whom Sber's dividends remain an important source of income year after year," Gref said. The state holds 50% plus one share in the lender, and the dividend will contribute to budget revenues at a time when oil prices are falling and economic growth is slowing. Sberbank's dividend payout at 50% of the bank's net profit aligns with the Finance Ministry's expectations. Sberbank's net profit increased by 4.5% in 2024 to 1.58 trillion roubles. ($1 = 81.3000 roubles)
Reuters
27-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Russia's Sberbank reports record 2024 profit of $18.1 billion
MOSCOW, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Russia's largest lender Sberbank ( opens new tab reported on Thursday a record annual profit of 1.58 trillion roubles ($18.1 billion) after corporate and retail lending coped well with steadily increasing interest rates to 21%. The central bank's high key rate has boosted banks' net interest margins, but is so high now that lending growth is starting to slow as companies cut back on investment and individuals prefer to hold funds on deposit. Profit for 2024 rose 4.8% from the previous year, the bank said. "The corporate loan portfolio grew by 19% year on year to over 27.7 billion roubles," CEO German Gref said in a statement. "The retail portfolio grew more moderately under pressure from high rates and stricter regulation and grew 12.7% for the year, amounting to 18.1 trillion roubles." Net interest income for 2024 reached 3 trillion roubles, up 17% year on year. Return on equity (ROE) dropped by 1.3 percentage points to 24% for 2024 as a whole. In 2025, the bank sees ROE at above 22%. Sberbank dominates Russia's banking sector with almost 110 million retail clients and more than 3 million corporate clients. The sector's profits hit a record 4 trillion roubles last year, though the central bank has warned that profits will slip to 3-3.5 trillion roubles in 2025 as credit risks grow and margins are squeezed. No. 2 lender VTB Bank ( opens new tab this week reported record annual profit as well, but said it would not recommend a dividend as high rates and new regulation dampen this year's earnings outlook. Gref said that global volatility meant he could not guarantee that state-owned Sberbank would pay dividends for the next three years, but said the bank would distribute 50% of net profit to shareholders as planned for 2024, offering a huge boost to Russia's budget revenue. Sberbank casts itself as a technology company and has made hefty investments in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), as Russia seeks technological sovereignty in the face of sweeping Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine. Gref said 2024 marked an important milestone for Sberbank as it integrated AI into more of the bank's systems and said the bank was developing in technology areas faster than it could have imagined. ($1 = 87.5000 roubles)
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) – AI Growth Slowdown Sparks Downgrade
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) stands against other must-watch AI stocks dominating headlines. The artificial intelligence story continues to grow more compelling with each passing day. In the latest news, a top executive at Russia's biggest bank told Reuters that Sberbank is planning to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects. The emergence of DeepSeek has already sparked a rout in the artificial intelligence world owing to its acclaimed cheap and efficient AI models. Ever since its emergence, the race towards AI supremacy has taken on a new turn. READ ALSO: and Russia and China have reportedly been sharing a 'no limits' strategic partnership. They have talked about cooperation in AI but nothing ever came to public knowledge before this. Sberbank, a Russian banking and financial services company headed by CEO German Gref, has since transformed itself from a former state savings bank into one of the country's leading players in artificial intelligence. The company released its GigaChat model in 2023. 'Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with researchers from China'. Vedyakhin did not specify who the bank plans to collaborate with, in China. Regardless, a potential partnership between Russia and China over the development of AI is in the works and will be seen as a major threat to the West. This is particularly for the US which is doing everything in its power to acclaim AI supremacy. Putin has directed Sberbank to build cooperation with China and other BRICS nations in AI to encounter U.S. dominance. Similar to China, the country is currently struggling to develop domestic computing capacity as a result of sanctions restricting imports of innovations from the West. Discussing DeepSeek, Vedyakhin has noted that since the launch of its models, Sberbank has compared them to GigaChat MAX, its most advanced model. The comparison has led them to the conclusion that the Chinese rival was superior in scientific tasks, while GigaChat was on par or better in banking. 'DeepSeek has proven that even with reduced capabilities, it is possible to achieve quality on par with American models. This raises questions about the necessity of extreme investments when there are engineering innovations'. For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (). A close up of a complex looking PCB board with several intergrated semiconductor Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) develops semiconductors, providing processors and graphics technologies for gaming, data centers, and AI-driven high-performance computing. On February 5th, Citi analyst Christopher Danely downgraded the stock to 'Neutral' from Buy with a price target of $110, down from $175. The analyst told investors in a research note that the company reported 'decent' results propelled by higher central processing unit sales. The company didn't provide an AI revenue guidance, and it seems that its AI revenue is flat to down for the first half of 2025 with margin dilution. The firm also said that there could be an inventory build in CPUs due to the growth of Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) CPUs in Q4. Due to this reason, it has lowered its estimates and downgraded the stock. 'We downgrade AMD from Buy to Neutral given slowing AI growth (lower multiple), poor leverage, and risk of an inventory correction'. Overall, AMD ranks 6th on our list of must-watch AI stocks dominating headlines. While we acknowledge the potential of AMD as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMD but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Tackles AI Hallucinations with Automated Reasoning
We recently published a list of 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks Dominating Headlines. In this article we are going to look at where Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) stands against other must-watch AI stocks dominating headlines. The artificial intelligence story continues to grow more compelling with each passing day. In the latest news, a top executive at Russia's biggest bank told Reuters that Sberbank is planning to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects. The emergence of DeepSeek has already sparked a rout in the artificial intelligence world owing to its acclaimed cheap and efficient AI models. Ever since its emergence, the race towards AI supremacy has taken on a new turn. READ NOW: and Russia and China have reportedly been sharing a 'no limits' strategic partnership. They have talked about cooperation in AI but nothing ever came to public knowledge before this. Sberbank, a Russian banking and financial services company headed by CEO German Gref, has since transformed itself from a former state savings bank into one of the country's leading players in artificial intelligence. The company released its GigaChat model in 2023. 'Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with researchers from China'. Vedyakhin did not specify who the bank plans to collaborate with, in China. Regardless, a potential partnership between Russia and China over the development of AI is in the works and will be seen as a major threat to the West. This is particularly for the US which is doing everything in its power to acclaim AI supremacy. Putin has directed Sberbank to build cooperation with China and other BRICS nations in AI to encounter U.S. dominance. Similar to China, the country is currently struggling to develop domestic computing capacity as a result of sanctions restricting imports of innovations from the West. Discussing DeepSeek, Vedyakhin has noted that since the launch of its models, Sberbank has compared them to GigaChat MAX, its most advanced model. The comparison has led them to the conclusion that the Chinese rival was superior in scientific tasks, while GigaChat was on par or better in banking. 'DeepSeek has proven that even with reduced capabilities, it is possible to achieve quality on par with American models. This raises questions about the necessity of extreme investments when there are engineering innovations'. For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (). A customer entering an internet retail store, illustrating the convenience of online Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is an American technology company offering e-commerce, cloud computing, and other services, including digital streaming and artificial intelligence solutions. On February 5th, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company is using math to solve one of the most critical challenges in artificial intelligence: hallucinations. AI hallucinations occur when AI models create patterns or objects that are non-existent, leading to falsehoods or inaccuracies in their output. These hallucinations have been a problem for users ever since chatbots became mainstream, causing users to be hesitant to completely trust these outputs. WSJ said that cloud-computing unit is now looking toward 'automated reasoning'. This will enable it to provide hard, mathematical proof that AI models' hallucinations can be stopped, at least in certain areas. Analysts state that Amazon Web Services could unlock millions of dollars worth of AI deals with businesses by doing so. Overall, AMZN ranks 2nd on our list of must-watch AI stocks dominating headline. While we acknowledge the potential of AMZN as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than AMZN but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Reuters
06-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Russia's Sberbank plans joint AI research with China as DeepSeek leaps forward
MOSCOW, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Sberbank plans to collaborate with Chinese researchers on joint AI projects, a top executive at Russia's biggest bank told Reuters, as China's DeepSeek has upended the tech landscape by creating an AI model much more cheaply than U.S. rivals. Russia and China, which share what they call a "no limits" strategic partnership, have long talked about AI cooperation - including in military applications - but little is publicly known about its depth or scope. Sberbank, under CEO German Gref, has transformed itself from a Soviet-style former state savings bank burdened by onerous bureaucracy into one of Russia's leading players in artificial intelligence and released its GigaChat model in 2023. "Sberbank has many scientists. Through them, we plan to conduct joint research projects with researchers from China," Sberbank First Deputy CEO Alexander Vedyakhin told Reuters. He did not specify who the bank plans to collaborate with in China. DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup, sent shockwaves through global markets last month as investors bet that its low-cost models would threaten the dominance of U.S. leaders such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab. A potential AI alliance between Russia and China, cast by Washington as the biggest nation state threats to the West, could further shake up the AI sector worldwide amid a race between China and the United States for AI dominance. President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a broad world view which portrays the West as decadent and in decline, as China challenges U.S. supremacy in everything from AI and quantum computing to synthetic biology and hard military power. The West's attempts to isolate Russia over the war in Ukraine have pushed Moscow and Beijing closer - and Putin has in recent months described China as an "ally". "China is a partner of Russia on many issues of the international agenda, and the level of scientific cooperation between our countries can be strengthened through collaboration between our scientists," Sberbank's First Deputy CEO added. AI ALLIANCE? Putin has instructed Sberbank, which is under Western sanctions, to build cooperation with China and other BRICS nations in AI to challenge U.S. dominance. But the true state of Russia's own AI projects is hard to assess as some are secret. Like China, Russia is struggling to develop domestic computing capacity due to sanctions that restrict imports of the latest Western hardware, and is seeking alternative solutions to remain competitive in the AI race. Russia currently ranks 31st out of 83 countries for AI implementation, innovation, and investment according to UK-based Tortoise Media's Global AI Index, trailing not only the United States and China but also fellow BRICS members India and Brazil. Vedyakhin said that since the launch of DeepSeek's models, Sberbank has compared them to GigaChat MAX, its most advanced model, establishing that the Chinese rival was superior in scientific tasks, while GigaChat was on par or better in banking. Vedyakhin noted that DeepSeek's success aligns with Sberbank's strategy of finding low-cost solutions instead of investing billions in computing infrastructure megaprojects like Stargate, a venture announced by U.S. President Donald Trump. "DeepSeek has proven that even with reduced capabilities, it is possible to achieve quality on par with American models. This raises questions about the necessity of extreme investments when there are engineering innovations," Vedyakhin said. Vedyakhin said that, like the creators of DeepSeek, Sberbank has made most of its AI platforms publicly accessible, including the text-to-image model Kandinsky, named after the 20th-century avant-garde painter Vassily Kandinsky, and its base model GigaChat Lite. "The success of DeepSeek is largely due to its transparency, which contrasts with the secrecy of OpenAI. This has attracted a huge community," Vedyakhin said.
