Protection from a change of leadership in Vanino is asked at the very top

The Vanino port team appealed to the country's leadership with a request not to allow a new Pikalevo in the village. Port workers sharply opposed the company’s development program proposed by the port’s minority shareholder, Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group. The port says she is breaking the law, cutting staff and putting an undesirable top manager in charge of the company. The Federal Property Management Agency still supports En+, although the regional authorities managed to stand up for the port.

An appeal from the team of Vanino Commercial Sea Port OJSC to President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appeared on the port’s website on Friday. In it, 518 signatories complained about the actions of the Cypriot Soleggiato Investments Ltd., which since May has consolidated more than 21% of the port’s ordinary shares (controlled by Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group). After the failed May auction for the sale of 73% of the port’s voting shares, the minority shareholder “is trying, with the support of officials of the Federal Property Management Agency, to install its own director,” the appeal states.

“Vanino Sea Trade Port” is one of the five largest sea ports of Russia in the Far East and one of the top ten in the country. 73.33% of ordinary shares belong to the Russian Federation, 21.64% - Soleggiato Investments Ltd. The port processes coal, non-ferrous and ferrous metals, timber and lumber, ore and containers. In 2010, it processed 6.011 million tons of cargo, revenue amounted to 1.36 billion rubles, net profit - 82.2 million rubles.

Kommersant already wrote about the intention of En+ Group structures to replace the general director of the port Alfir Bogudinov with Dmitry Lisin, who now represents Soleggiato Investments on the board of directors. En+ submitted a corresponding proposal to the Federal Property Management Agency, citing the need for a change due to the port’s low financial and operational indicators for 2010. Mr. Bogudinov then answered the Federal Property Management Agency that the decrease in transshipment occurred due to the fact that Russian Railways OJSC is systematically increasing the transportation of coal to the neighboring SUEK terminal (the operator is the company’s subsidiary, Daltransugol CJSC), and this year the company’s indicators have only increased.

However, the department has not yet heard the arguments of the OJSC, Alfir Bogudinov told Kommersant yesterday. Relations with En+ have always been constructive, he emphasized, but port specialists are against the so-called “development program” for 2012–15, recently presented at the board of directors. In addition, the powers of Mr. Bogudinov himself end only in 2013, and his change is a violation of corporate norms, according to the port.

The replacement for this post is from Soleggiato Investments Ltd. Dmitry Lisin was indeed proposed, Mr. Bogudinov confirmed to Kommersant. But his “work experience in a number of companies in the Far East is alarming, since the time spent in the position always does not exceed a year and a half,” adds the general director. In the 2000s, Mr. Lisin was the head of a number of ports (including the Primorye OJSC Vostochny Port), and in 2008–10 he headed Daltransugol.

Reducing the number of port employees “will deprive us of stable income and will lead to social tension in our workers’ village,” port workers say. “We don’t want such ‘schemes’ to be applied to us as in Pikalevo,” said the port workers. In Pikalevo, we recall that residents blocked the federal highway due to problems at Baselcement, and Vladimir Putin had to intervene in the situation.

An explosion of tension could also occur in Vanino, claims a Kommersant source at the port. The En+ program proposes measures that lead to so-called “tax schemes,” and the main conclusion of the port workers, sent to the Federal Property Management Agency, is this: it must undergo an examination, adds Kommersant’s source.

Meanwhile, the regional authorities have already managed to stand up for the port, turning to the Federal Property Management Agency with a request “not to consider the issue of changing the management of the port before the sale of the federal stake.” As a source in the Ministry of Industry told Kommersant, officials consider the enterprise highly significant and effective. The indicators of society over the past 9 months have only improved, the ministry agrees. “All this has been laid out to the Federal Property Management Agency. It’s up to him to make the decision,” says the official. The En+ program “does not correspond to the norms of the law and actual circumstances,” however, it is the one that has so far been preferred by members of the board of directors, most of which consists of officials of the Federal Property Management Agency, admits Alfir Bogudinov. Kommersant will continue to monitor developments.

Dmitry Shcherbakov, Alexey Poyarkov

The President and Prime Minister were called to the port