OREANDA-NEWS. July 01, 2010. Sibirtelecom, the largest telecommunications operator in the Siberian Federal District, held its annual general shareholders meeting in Barnaul.

The shareholders of Sibirtelecom passed a resolution on the reorganization of the Company as a merger with Rostelecom.  In this way, the shareholders of the Siberian operator kicked off another important stage in the reorganization of the Svyazinvest Group of companies, i.e. the holding of annual general shareholders meetings of regional telecommunications operators (RTOs) and Rostelecom, at which the key issue on the agenda will be the issue of merging with Rostelecom.

As expected, as a result of the reorganization of the Svyazinvest Group of companies, instead of eight operators which provide core telecommunications services to the population, state agencies and corporate clients only within the boundaries of their license coverage areas, a single universal operator is to be formed, which is capable of providing the full range of advanced telecom solutions on a national scale.  These include traditional services, such as local, DLD and ILD telephony, and value-added services including datacom, wireless telecommunications and broadband Internet.

All in all, those holding a total of 59.78% of voting shares (common and preferred shares) took part in the merger issue.  In addition, those holding a total of 71.06% of voting shares (common and preferred shares) took part in other issues.

The annual general shareholders meeting approved the company’s annual financial statement, annual accounting reports, including the income statement (profit and loss accounts) of the Company, allocation of profit (including payment of dividends) and losses of the company based on 2009 financial results.  According to the resolution, Sibirtelecom will allocate RUR 582,090,337, including: 0.0589249 per one preferred share and 0.0292878 per one common share. All in all, RUR 1,763,156,789 will be allocated for increasing the company’s shareholder capital.

A new lineup of the Board of Directors of the Company was elected, which includes the following members:

Bogdan I. Golubitsky;

Alexander V. Kachurin;

Gennady G. Kudryavtsev;

Alexey A. Lokotkov;

Igor B. Pshenichnikov;

Igor N. Repin;

Vladimir A. Statin;

Elena V. Umnova;

Nadezhda V. Filippova;

Alexander V. Shevchuk;

Evgeny V. Yurchenko.

The Audit Committee of Sibirtelecom consists of five members:

Vitaly V. Bekin;

Alexey V. Kravchenko;

Olga G. Koroleva;

Pavel E. Puchkov;

Natalia P. Utina. 

The shareholders meeting also approved the new edition of the Company Charter and Statute on the Board of Directors of Sibirtelecom.

The Company’s external auditor for 2010 was approved as Ernst & Young.

In addition, the standards (percentages) were approved for deductions of annual remuneration payable to the Board of Directors of Sibirtelecom, which was elected at the annual general shareholders meeting.  This metric came to 0.26% of the company’s EBITDA according the 2010 IFRS accounting report; 0.78% of the Company’s net profit of the Company’s dividends are to be allocated for dividend payouts in full-year 2010.

The shareholders meeting adopted a decision on the amount of compensation payable to members of the Board of Director of Sibirtelecom in full-year 2009, and also set the size of and procedure for paying out remuneration on 2009 financial results.

All materials pertaining to the annual general shareholders meeting of Sibirtelecom were posted on the Company’s corporate website as of June 5, 2010 and can be viewed by all those who are interested in the section entitled “Investors and Shareholders” (in Russian).  Official information on the results of the operator’s AGM will be announced after the minutes of the meeting are compiled in accordance with Federal Law FZ “On Joint Stock Companies”.