Long-time Uralkali independent director Ostling leaves board

MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax) - Paul Ostling, a long-time member of Uralkali's board of directors since 2011, has left it after imposition of sanctions on the company's beneficiary Dmitry Mazepin.

The fact that Ostling is no longer on the potash company's board of directors was disclosed by Polymetal (Ostling has been an independent director of the gold miner since March 17).

Ostling, formerly of Ernst & Young, was a long-time member of Uralkali's board of directors. He joined the board in the summer of 2011, after the merger of Uralkali with Silvinit (at that time, the potash giant was controlled by Suleiman Kerimov and his partners). Since then, Uralkali has changed its shareholder structure several times and ceased to be public, but until recently retained three independent directors on the board.

No other changes in Uralkali's board of directors have been reported. After Mazepin was put on the EU sanctions list, the company removed information about the board from its website.

UralChem owns 78.03% of Uralkali's charter capital, with another 0.136% owned directly by Mazepin. The rest of the stake is a quasi-treasury one.

Mazepin, having been sanctioned, transferred control over Uralchem Group to his long-time associates - Chairman of the company's Board of Directors Dmitry Tatyanin and General Director Dmitry Konyaev. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Tatyanin, who has been the legal director of UralChem since 2007, became the owner of 48% of Basic Chemical Company Uralchem LLC (which owns UCC Uralchem). Konyaev, who again replaced Mazepin as head of UralChem, received a 4% stake in the company.

Mazepin has retained a 48% stake in BHK Uralchem.