Long-serving official Evgeny Yasin is strongly tipped to win a seat at Gazprom's board this year.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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Gazprom to Reshuffle its Board within Kremlin’s Limits
Gazprom is to consider candidates to enter its board of directors on Monday in the first election after the liberalization of the company’s stock. Holders of Gazprom’s ADRs will now be able to vote on the board’s line-up. Russian authorities are ready to come up with such high-ranking nominees as Evgeny Yasin and Alexander Shokhin.
Gazprom’s board of directors is expected to endorse 19 nominees to enter the panel on Monday. 11 people from the list are already serving on the board, a source of Kommersant reports.
This will be the first board election after the liberalization of Gazprom’s stock. As Russian authorities received 51 percent of shares in the gas giant in 2005, all restrictions for foreigners to hold stakes in Gazprom were lifted.
FIM Securities expects active presence of minority shareholders in the vote for unaffiliated directors. The share of American Depositary Receipts in Gazprom’s capital reached 11 percent in October, according to official reports. “If foreigners buy ADRs equivalent to 3 percent in Gazprom in the next two months, the number of independent directors may increase from two to three,” says Sergey Glazer, Vostok Nafta’s nominee, estimating the share of ADR’s in Gapzrom’s capital at 12-14 percent.
Most industry experts say E.ON Ruhrgas Chairman Burckhard Bergmann is sure to be elected, which leaves only one or two unaffiliated seats to share on the board. Still, analysts argue that whatever the board’s line-up is, it will be affiliated with Russian authorities anyway. Among this year’s nominees are long-serving economist Evgeny Yasin, a nominee from the Federal Property Management Agency, and Alexander Shokhin, head of the influential and Kremlin-loyal Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 05, 2007
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