"Transneft"

Oil pipeline monopoly. Shareholders: Rosimushchestvo (100% of votes, 78.1% of capital), the rest is in free float (100% of preferred shares, 21.9% of capital). Revenue (IFRS, 9 months of 2010) – 321.8 billion rubles. Profit – 92.3 billion rubles.

Transneft Vice President for Finance Vladimir Kushnarev is leaving the company in a few days, two of his acquaintances and a source close to the monopoly told Vedomosti. He is leaving by mutual agreement, they say, without disclosing details. There are no candidates for his position yet, Vedomosti's sources note. A Transneft representative declined to comment; it was not possible to contact Kushnarev through his reception.

Kushnarev, 54, graduated from Bauman Moscow State Technical University and worked for several years as a senior research fellow. In the 1990s, he went into business, and until 2001, he headed the insurance company Plato. It cooperated with Zarubezhneft, and Kushnarev was liked by the company's then general director Nikolai Tokarev (now the president of Transneft), who invited him to the position of first deputy, Vedomosti's sources say. At that time, the company was in a difficult situation: debts, losses, no funds for development. Over several years, Kushnarev reduced Zarubezhneft's debt burden, achieved an increase in the authorized capital by almost 15 times, and brought the company to profit, the manager's acquaintances continue. In October 2007, Kushnarev, along with Tokarev's team, went to work for Transneft. Vedomosti's sources do not say why he is resigning and what he will do. "Kushnarev often made alternative judgments on Transneft deals," notes one of his acquaintances. In particular, he did not agree with the monopoly's participation in the deal to buy NMTP (see the article on page 01 for more details), adds another.

At the end of 2007, Transneft seriously changed its financial policy, notes Grigory Birg, an analyst at Investcafe: if before 2008, the bulk of the debt was short-term loans (90.8% of the total debt in 2005), then the monopoly began to actively attract long-term loans (98.8% as of September 2010), increasing their volume by 7.5 times. At the end of September 2010, the ratio of Transneft's total debt to its capital almost doubled compared to the end of 2007 (71% versus 36%). But dividend payments decreased from 1.59% of IFRS profit for 2006 to 0.81% for 2009. Labor costs from the beginning of 2008 to the beginning of 2010 increased by 82%. "Transneft has many projects. Qualified personnel are in great demand – in order to retain employees, wages must be competitive," explains an employee of the monopoly.

Tokarev is looking for a financier