Together again

Managers of Mikhail Gutseriev return to Russneft

As it became known yesterday, top managers who worked there until the summer of 2007 returned to Russneft. Mikhail Gutseriev, who, as is known, regained control over the company two weeks ago, is not yet on its new board of directors. According to experts, Mr. Gutseriev’s leadership status has not been formally secured due to unresolved problems with law enforcement agencies.

On January 14, as you know, Oleg Gordeev was appointed president of the company. He came to RussNeft four years after its founding, in 2006, and as vice president oversaw the commercial block and sales strategy. In July 2007, control of the company was gained by Oleg Deripaska, who acquired it from Mr. Gutseriev. Since then, RussNeft has been headed by people from Mr. Deripaska's structures - Vladislav Solovyov and Yakov Itskov. Mr. Gutseriev then had to leave the country due to problems with the law. At the end of last year, when it became clear that RussNeft was returning to Mr. Gutseriev, Mr. Gordeev became its de facto leader.

Together with Mr. Deripaska, his team also left the company: Vice President for Economics Andrey Dokhlov, Vice President for Oil and Gas Production Vladimir Svaykin, Vice President for Corporate Relations Alexander Alexandrov, Vice President for Capital Construction Dmitry Ryabchenko. But the top managers who worked under Mr. Gutseriev returned. Thus, Olga Prozorovskaya, who came to RussNeft back in 2002 and left it after the sale, was appointed senior vice president for economics and finance. Dmitry Romanov, who has worked for the company in the same position since 2003, was appointed vice president for corporate relations. Igor Kirdoda (in 2006-2007, vice-president for foreign economic activity) became vice-president for capital construction and development, and Viktor Eremeev became vice-president for general issues (performed the same functions in 2004--2007). Also, Vice President for Public Relations Eduard Sarkisov, who came to the company one of the first and was the last to leave from Mr. Gutseriev’s team - in the spring of 2009, will now work again at Russneft. Vladimir Ignatko, who worked at Slavneft under the leadership of Mr. Gutseriev, became the new vice president for oil and gas production. When RussNeft was sold, almost all of its former managers went to Russian Coal (which is controlled by Mr. Gutseriev).

The composition of the board of directors has also changed; now there are three new representatives of RussNeft: Mr. Gordeev, Ms. Prozorovskaya and Anton Zhuchenko. At the same time, it still included representatives of the oil trader Glencore and Sberbank (Yana Tikhonova and Ashot Khachaturyants, respectively), to whom the company still had an outstanding debt. Moreover, it is possible that Sberbank, to which Russneft did not repay a loan of 118 billion rubles, will become one of the co-owners of the company: it may receive a 1-2% share. AFK Sistema wants to buy another 49% of the shares. Thus, the sale of this stake to Sberbank will create parity between the corporation and Mikhail Gutseriev.

It was expected that Mr. Gutseriev himself would appear on the board of directors. However, its owner has not yet officially received any position in the company. According to experts, he still has formal problems with the law. “The main charges against Mr. Gutseriev have been dropped, but the final fate of the businessman is unclear. The company's ownership structure is also unclear. Most likely, Mr. Gutseriev will officially return to the management of the company when all these problems are resolved,” says Valeria Nesterov from Troika Dialog.

Kirill MELNIKOV