Prescribed care

Vladimir Iorikh's team leaves Mechel

Vladimir Iorikh left the post of general director of the Mechel management company. As the company's press service reported, his successor was Vladimir Polin, Senior Vice President for Production. Mr. Iorikh, as previously announced, is leaving the management of the company in accordance with an agreement reached in early 2006 to sell shares to his Mechel partner Igor Zyuzin. At the same time, Mr. Iorikh still has some shares in Mechel, and therefore he retains his positions in the company’s management. Mr. Iorikh will continue to work at Mechel OAO as General Director and member of the Board of Directors.

At the beginning of February of this year. Iorikh and Zyuzin announced that the former would gradually sell his stake in Mechel, leave the shareholders and management bodies of the company, and the latter would consolidate a controlling stake in the group. At the time of the agreement, each of them owned 42.2% of shares in Mechel OAO. Sources familiar with the situation said that Mr. Iorich decided to leave the business due to disagreements with his partner regarding the company's future development strategy.

After this, Mr. Iorich began to sell his shares. In mid-March, part of them was placed in the form of GDRs on the New York Stock Exchange; now the free float of the company's shares is 23.9%. At the same time, Mr. Zyuzin gradually increased his stake: a week ago it was announced that he had consolidated a controlling stake and increased his stake in Mechel OAO to 52.2%. As of May 18, Mr. Iorikh retained 20.8% of the company's shares, 3.1% was on the balance sheet of Mechel International Holdings.

In this regard, Mr. Iorich, as promised, left the management company. The personnel changes at Mechel did not end there. Alex Polevoy, who joined the group last year from TNK-BP, will leave the post of senior vice president for finance on June 30. His place will be taken by Anton Vishchanenko (he heads the international reporting department of Mechel OAO and has been working in the company for almost four years). However, the press service of Mechel claims that Mr. Polevoy will remain in the company and will improve corporate standards and the financial reporting system as a member of the board of directors, to which he has been nominated as a candidate (elections of the new board will be held at the annual general meeting of shareholders on June 30 ), and will also take part in the work of the audit committee, but without voting rights.

All these changes suggest that the company under the leadership of Mr. Zyuzin will rely more on old personnel. Hired managers will remain in the background, playing the role of consultants rather than company strategists.

Anna LANDER