Rusal called for a change in the head of the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel

“Rusal(owns 26.39% of Norilsk Nickel) suggested discussing the change of the head of the board of directors of Norilsk Nickel and his election from among independent directors. This was reported RBC And “Kommersant” with reference to sources.

“Representatives of Rusal insisted that the meeting of the board of directors, which was held on February 27 in absentia, be in person and consider the issue of electing a new independent chairman of the board of directors. However, the offer was rejected,” the company said.

Now the chairman of the board of directors is Andrey Bugrov, who before that from 2013 to 2022. was vice president of Interros. In this position, he replaced independent director Gareth Penny, who worked in this position for 9 years and in March 2022 decided to leave the board of directors of the company against the backdrop of the start of a special operation and the imposition of Western sanctions against Moscow.

According to the publications, an in-person meeting may be held in the near future, at which the change of the chairman of the board of directors of the company will be discussed. It is clarified that it was proposed to elect an independent non-executive director of Rusal, Yevgeny Schwartz, for this position.

Meanwhile, the press service of Norilsk Nickel reportedthat at the meeting on February 27 it was decided to strengthen the role of independent directors in the work of the board – they were elected heads of committees of the board of directors. It was clarified that this was an offer from Interros. According to publications, the initiator was Interros CEO Sergei Batekhin, who previously headed the budget committee.

In particular, Denis Aleksandrov was elected Chairman of the Strategy Committee, previously this position was held by Elena Bezdenezhnykh, Vice President for Regional Policy and Interaction with Authorities and Government of UC Rusal. In addition, the Corporate Governance and Human Resources Committee was headed by Aleksey Germanovich, as well as. O. Yegor Sheybak was appointed head of the budget committee, who was nominated by Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov’s Crispian company (which owns 4% of Norilsk Nickel).

36.14% of Norilsk Nickel is owned by Vladimir Potanin’s Interros, another 26.39% is owned by UC Rusal. UC Rusal bought a 25% stake in Norilsk Nickel in 2008 from businessman Mikhail Prokhorov. Because of this deal, the first conflict between Potanin and the founder of UC Rusal, Oleg Deripaska, occurred. He dealt with approaches to paying dividends, actions with non-core assets of Norilsk Nickel and the nuances of corporate governance. In 2012, the parties signed a ten-year shareholder agreement, which fixed the main terms of the shareholders’ relationship, in particular, the payment of dividends.