Fortum Russia shareholders vote against 2021 dividends, elect new board without Finnish directors
CHELYABINSK. April 20 (Interfax) - Shareholders in PJSC Fortum , the Russia-based generating company controlled by Finland's Fortum Group, voted at their AGM in absentia on April 19 not to distribute dividends upon results of 2021 and to keep the company’s 18.644 billion rubles of profit as retained earnings, the company said in a statement.
PJSC Fortum paid all 19.277 billion rubles of net profit for January -September 2021 as interim dividends for that period.
It paid dividends of 14.5 billion rubles or 16.04 rubles or share for 2020.
The company paid its maiden dividend for 2017 and had paid dividends for each year since 2018. Dividends were not paid in the period 2007-2016, by decision of the shareholders.
PJSC Fortum has 880,387,078 issued ordinary shares, par value 1.66 rubles each.
The shareholders elected a new board of nine directors, seven of them from the Russian company's own management to replace representatives of the Finnish parent company.
Fortum CEO Markus Rauramo, CFO Bernhard Gunther and Sirpa-Helena Sormunen, Susanne Jonsson, Risto Penttinen, Mika Paavilainen and Reijo Kalevi Salo left the board.
Fortum CEO and PJSC Fortum General Director Alexander Chuvayev and Eristan Vekilov, Fortum's vice president for human resources, were re-elected.
The new board also includes PJSC Fortum First Deputy General Director, Vice President for Government Relations and Sustainable Business Development Sergei Chizhov; Deputy General Director for Operations - Chief Engineer Parviz Abdushukurov; Deputy General Director for Strategy, Production Portfolio Management Dmitry Borovikov; Deputy General Director for Procurement and Investments Dmitry Kuzin; Deputy General Director for Corporate and Legal Affairs Valentina Nudga; and Radik Karymov and Mikhail Mikhailov, directors of the Ural Energy System and Western Siberia Energy System, respectively.
PJSC Fortum includes seven thermal power plants in the Urals and Western Siberia. It is also a major player in the Russian renewable energy market with 3.4 GW of capacity.
Fortum Group owned 98.23% of PJSC Fortum as of the end of 2021, according to the Russian company's list of affiliated persons.