Former Scartel exec named CFO at VKontakte
MOSCOW. Jan 24 (Interfax) - Former Scartel (Yota) financial director Alexander Tretyakov has been appointed chief financial officer at Russian social network VKontakte.
The former head of Internet assets at USM Advisors, Boris Dobrodeyev has been appointed investor relations director, VKontakte spokesman Georgy Lobushkin told Interfax.
Tretyakov will replace Igor Perekopsky, who left VKontakte earlier this week along with his brother Ilya Perekopsky, who was vice president. It was reported earlier that former Kommersant Publishing Housing president Dmitry Sergeyev has been appointed the new vice president at VKontakte.
USM Advisors, Kommersant and Scartel are all companies owned by billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who is the principal shareholder of Mail.ru Group, which owns 39.99% of VKontakte. When Sergeyev stepped down from his position as Kommersant president last fall, Usmanov said that he would remain on his team.
VKontakte founder Pavel Durov, who owns 12% of the social network, is openly feuding with principal shareholder United Capital Partners (UCP), which owns 48%.
UCP has said that its grievances against Durov could make it problematic for the founder to continue on at the helm of the company. UCP claims that Durov has decided to develop VKontakte at an unhurried pace and focus his efforts on personal projects (Digital Fortress, Telegram) while using the resources of the social network and its employees.
Durov has said that the current shareholder structure at VKontakte is unsustainable. It came about in April 2013, when UCP unexpectedly bought out the stakes of VKontakte cofounders Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Lev Leviyev.
Mail.ru Group had not previously commented on the feud, but at the end of last year Usmanov said that UCP's grievances against Durov might be justified.