I can see no justifiable reason for cancelling the divi. The company has already earmarked it; they can obviously afford it, and it would be a kind of consolation prize to the shareholders who have taken such a hit on their investment.
A third of the company's business is in Russia, and the sp at running at about 1/9th of what it was before the invasion. Looks like lots of upside to me; and that's without the divi.
This drop has all the hallmarks of an MM stop-loss raid - sudden drop with no selling, and hour of trading to go. That would be in a normal market though.... Hoping I'm right, as I bought in in the upper 80s...
Ex- dividend date is the 10 Mar. Yes it may drop by the dividend amount, but that only holds in a normal market where the share price isn't crazily low. Sure, it's volatile, but it looks like only upside now. And whatever happens to the sp, the divi is guaranteed.
In theory, the sp will drop by a third. But while it's this low, and things are so volatile, who knows? Even if it does drop, your divi is guaranteed, whereas anything could happen to the share price.
This just illustrates the illogicality of the markets. Before today's announcement, the market did not believe CNE was worth more than about 205p, in case India didn't pay up.India's now paid up; so why is this only worth about 215p?