Today, Norilsk Nickel’s Board of Directors should approve the list of candidates to fill the new Board, writes Russian newspaper Vedomosti. The list of nominees will be submitted for the elections on company’s AGM this summer. Norilsk Nickel’s board have 13 seats, which according to the shares ownership and previously reached agreements distributed in the following way: Interros – 4 seats, UC Rusal, 2 seats, Independent Directors – 5 seats, Norilsk Nickel – 1 seat, Trafigura – 1 seat.
UC Rusal, according to the Russian media, has proposed 8 candidates to the new board. The list includes four acting directors of the board — Oleg Deripaska, co-owner and general director of UC Rusal, his deputy in Rusal, Maxim Sokov, former head of Presidential administration Alexander Voloshin and chairman of the BoD of Metalloinvest, Farhad Moshiri.
To the four acting members UC Rusal adds the candidacies of Dmitriy Razumov, president of Onexim, advisor of Rusal’s general director Stalbek Mishakov and general director of En+ Holding Artem Volynets. Rusal also proposed one independent director — senior partner in the Moscow office of Bain & Company consulting firm Gerhard Prinsloo.
Another independent previously signed by Rusal, a law professor from Harvard University Lucian Bebchuk has decided not to continue his membership in the next BoD, expressing that independent directors in Norilsk Nickel are deprived from the opportunity to participate in company’s decisions and are constantly under serious pressure from shareholders of the company.
UC Rusal was obliged to nominate representative from Onexim to Norilsk Nickel’s board following the agreement of purchase of the stocks from Michael Prokhorov, though in October, 2011 Rusal informed that it squared up with Onexim.
The existence of Dmitriy Razumov in the current Rusal lists yet uclear, although there are assumptions that Razumov may represent minority shareholders of UC Rusal in Norilsk Nickel board, who are running a controversy with Oleg Deripaska regarding what Rusal should do with its stake in Norilsk Nickel. Deripaska had rejected three offers to sell his stake in Norilsk Nickel, the last one where for 20% stake Norilsk Nickel proposed $12.8 billion, was supported by other Rusal shareholders.
Management of Norilsk Nickel, which owns 9,54% stake had promoted acting members of the board: Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, current general director of the company, member of the board of Trafigura trading company Claude Dofin and general director of Freetel Capital, Enos Banda.