Translated material
Cover operation
Miller headed the board of the “alien” Gazfond
Alexey Miller added an unexpected position to his track record. Gazprom's report for the first quarter of 2007 reported that the chairman of the concern's board became head of the board of Gazfond, a non-state pension fund. As is known, as a result of the movement of assets within the Gazprom group throughout the past year, Gazfond became the owner of a serious business. Now he owns 42% of Gazprombank and a blocking stake in SIBUR, and indirectly, through Gazprombank, controlling shares in SIBUR, Gazprom Media, OMZ, Atomstroyexport, etc.Alexey Miller's new position would not be particularly surprising if Gazfond were not expected to leave the Gazprom group. In the next consolidated report of the concern (for 2006), this fact will most likely be officially disclosed. As the Vremya Novostei newspaper has already written, this will happen due to two events. Firstly, from this year, according to the law, non-profit partnerships, to which the fund belongs, are excluded from the list of affiliated persons. Secondly, and even more important, last fall the quantitative and qualitative composition of the Gazfond council changed. Thanks to amendments to the charter of the NPF, its board, which simultaneously performs the functions of a meeting of shareholders of the supervisory board, consists of more than half representatives of the Sogaz insurance company. As you know, not long ago Gazprom sold it to the structures of Rossiya Bank. Information about the composition of the council was not officially disclosed.
According to Vremya Novostey, these changes came as somewhat of a surprise to Gazprom’s financial block. In addition, the concern’s investors might have questioned whether their interests were taken into account in the process of withdrawing Gazfond with all its assets from the group. The prospectus for the issue of Gazprom Eurobonds at the beginning of the year stated: “As a result of these changes (the charter of the pension fund - Ed. ), the board of the NPF Gazfond fund included third parties currently involved in the operating activities of the NPF Gazfond.” . Management is assessing the effect of this change on consolidated financial statements for future periods.”
Alexey Miller's chairmanship on the fund's board may smooth out the effect of what is happening for investors: the presence of the head of Gazprom in this post can be regarded as maintaining formal control over the assets that have actually disappeared. However, the fund still did not disclose the full composition of the council.