For the first time in ten years, Abramovich did not nominate a representative to the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel – Kommersant

The Cypriot company Crispian Investments Limited, which has owned about 4% of Norilsk Nickel since the end of 2012, and its main shareholders Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov this year decided not to nominate their representatives to the board of directors of the mining and metallurgical plant for the first time since 2013. This is reported RBC citing a source close to Crispian.

The refusal of Messrs. Abramovich and Abramov to nominate their representatives is also confirmed by the results of the meeting of shareholders of Norilsk Nickel, which took place June 6th Six of the 13 seats on the board of directors were taken by representatives of the company’s largest shareholder, Interros Vladimir Potanin (who owns a 37% stake in Norilsk Nickel), including the head of Interros Sergey Batekhin and the chairman of the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel Andrey Bugrov.

Candidates nominated by UC Rusal (26.39% of Norilsk Nickel) won five seats on the board of directors, including its vice president Elena Bezdenezhnykh and director of Russian Aluminum Management Alexandra Zakharova.

The remaining two seats are held by the ex-head of the gold mining company Petropavlovsk, Denis Aleksandrov, and the deputy chairman of the RSPP Committee for the Development of Competition, Yegor Sheybak. IN message Norilsk Nickel pointed out that Mr. Aleksandrov and Sheybak were nominated not by the shareholders, but by the Board of Directors itself. However, in 2022 they were nominated to the board by Crispian, RBC notes.

“Neither Crispian nor Crispian’s major shareholders have nominated candidates to the board of directors this year. The fact that the company nominated them is their business. They are independent candidates and now they decide on their own, ”RBC quotes the words of an interlocutor close to Crispian.

In 2012, Vladimir Potanin’s Interros, UC Rusal founded by Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov’s Crispian entered into a ten-year shareholder agreement under which Mr. Potanin became the managing partner of Norilsk Nickel.

Crispian, which became a shareholder of Norilsk Nickel, annually nominated two candidates to its board. From 2013 to March 2022, it was represented by the president of Invest AG (an investment company that manages the assets of Alexander Abramov and his Evraz partner Alexander Frolov) Sergey Bratukhin and the head of Highcross Resources Ltd. Robert Edwards.

After the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Mr. Edwards, as well as Gareth Penny, who served as chairman of the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel, and Roger Munnings, an independent executive director of the company (all three are British citizens), decided to leave the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel. Then Sergei Bratukhin also left him.