UPDATE: TNK-BP Names New Board, Old Directors Not Included
Monday December 22nd, 2008 / 19h42
(Adds details, background)
LONDON-(Dow Jones)- None of the members of the old board of Anglo-Russian oil company TNK-BP Holding (TNBP.RS) have been elected to its new board, as presented by the company Monday.
In addition, for the first time, the company has appointed an independent board member, David Rodolphe Lasfargue, director of the Moscow office of law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel Vostok.
A person familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires that Lasfargue was elected the chairman of TNK-BP Holdings.
Apart from Lasfargue, the board is split evenly between representatives of the company's two owners.
The Alfa-Access-Renova consortium, owned by a group of Russian tycoons, will be represented on the board by Access Industries Vice President Anatoly Akimenko, Alfa Finance Holdings SA Executive Director Pavel Nazarian, CTF Consultancy Ltd. Strategic Planning Director Alexei Savchenko, and Renova Management AG Legal Director Igor Cheremikin, TNK-BP Holding said.
BP PLC (BP) is to be represented by BP Exploration Services Ltd. Finance Director Paul Lindsey Kitson, its Vice President Richard Scott Sloan, Vice President for Russia and Kazakhstan Peter Anthony Charow, and lawyer Grant Darren Warnsby.
"This composition will ensure equal and direct involvement of both shareholder groups in all key decision-making," TNK-BP said in a statement.
The changes at TNK-BP Holding, Russia's third-biggest oil producer, were approved in accordance with a memorandum of understanding signed in September by shareholders U.K. oil major BP and a group of Russian business tycoons known as AAR.
TNK-BP Holding is the listed subsidiary of TNK-BP Ltd., which is owned on a 50-50 basis by BP and AAR.
Earlier this year, the two sides were caught up in a fierce battle over strategy and control of the company. That dispute came to an end with the signing in September of the MoU, which envisaged the company's chief executive being ousted.
Tim Summers was named acting CEO in December after former head Robert Dudley resigned at the demand of the Russian side.
People familiar with the matter told Dow Jones Newswires that both BP and AAR have agreed on appointing former Chief Executive of miner OAO Norilsk Nickel (GMKN.RS) Denis Morozov as the company's CEO.
"There are some purely technical, bureaucratic minor issues preventing the shareholders from making this official," one of the people said, adding that the appointment will be made done very soon, but hardly before the end of the year.
Minority shareholders own approximately 5% of the shareholding in TNK-BP Holding.
Company Web site: www.tnk-bp.com
-By Alexander Kolyandr and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 20 7842 9410; alexander.kolyandr@dowjones.com
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