Rosneft president Sergey Bogdanchikov (left) and chairman of the board Igor Sechin at the company's shareholders meeting, June 30, 2007
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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Rosneft Meets Its New Shareholders
Rosneft, the first Russian state company to hold a “people's” IPO, held its first shareholders meeting with its new investors on Saturday. About 900 people came to the meeting, out of 115,000, who invested $750 million in the company. Now the company has over 150,000 shareholders. Rosneft president Sergey Bogdanchikov read the opening report, which was a glowing account of the company's successes. Then Rosneft financial vice president Sergey Makarov reported on the distribution of profit. That led to the main question on the new shareholders' minds – why their investments are generating so little income.
Makarov explained that the company promised to apply at least 10 percent of the profit to dividends. In fact, 13.3 percent of the profit went to dividends, while the rest would go to production and social programs. Also YUKOS assets were purchased. Bogdanchikov said that income may reach 25 percent by the end of the year. Nonetheless, only investors who bought 100,000 rubles of stock or more received a dividend large enough to cover the cost (640 rubles) of transferring the stock from the Sberbank depository to a register. Chairman of the Rosneft board and deputy chief of the Russian presidential executive staff Igor Sechin promised that the company would set up a large division to work with individual shareholders.
All who wished to speak at the meeting were given a chance, and the executives were accessible for individual conversations during breaks as well. The Rosneft executives tactfully refrained from mentioning that the minority shareholders have no say in company affairs. They own 68.98 million shares, or 0.65 percent of the authorized capital. A minimum of 2 percent is needed to participate in the management of the company.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 02, 2007
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