MUNICH/PARIS (Reuters) - French transportation and manufacturing group Alstom (>> Alstom) plans to pay its shareholders a special dividend if a deal to merge with Siemens' (>> Siemens) rail business goes through, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.

The special dividend would even out the value of Siemens and Alstom, which has too much cash on its balance sheet, to smooth the intended 50-50 joint venture, one of the people said.

"Will there be a special dividend? Yes," said the second person.

(Reporting by Alexander Huebner and Cyril Altmeyer; Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

Stocks treated in this article : Alstom, Siemens