Shareholders' meeting appoints new GD and other directors to reflect the criteria for the aircraft leasing guarantee scheme (340 words)

Published: 10/16/2001

A shareholders' meeting of leasing company ZAO FLK, held on 24th September, has replaced the incumbent General Director, Yevgeny Zaritsky, with Marsel Zaripov a Deputy Minister of Economics and Industry. Other substantial changes have been made to the board of the company, which is controlled by the State Property Ministry of Tatarstan (37.02%) and state-owned oil company Tatneft(15%). These changes reflect the increased state stake through a recent issue, increasing the capital of the company to $51m ahead of the awarding of the tender for the government guaranteed aerospace leasing vehicles. The new directors of FLK include Marsel Zaripov, Serguey Kogotin, a Deputy Minister of Economics and Industry and Shafagat Minnegaliyev, the First Deputy Minister of Finance of Tatarstan. Other board appointments are Shafagat Takhautdinov, General Director of Tatneft, Nail Khairullin, General Director of KAPO, a 7.14% shareholder and Igor Shevchuk, General Director of ANTK Tupolev. Current director, Igor Avanesyan, General Director of ZAO Petrokam and Director of Moscow-based Zenit Bank (Tatneft's major bank and a small shareholder) retained his seat, as did Vladimir Semernin, General Director of IFK Solid (12.5%), Aleksey Sokolov, Chairman of Zenit Bank and the outgoing General Director, Yevgeny Zaritsky. Under the terms of the aircraft leasing guarantee scheme, the participating leasing companies are to move towards government control and in this respect, the changes at FLK are not that surprising. The appointment of a government minister as General Director could perhaps be interpreted as underlining the political nature of the proposed leasing schemes. On the other hand, it almost contradicts the idea of the guarantees as "pump priming" exercises to bring confidence to the development of commercial aircraft leasing in Russia, with the stated goal of removing government involvement once that confidence is established. Other shareholders in the company include Moscow-based ZAO Pushnina (9.5%), Tatenergo (5.84%) and Tver Financial Group registered at Zhukovsky (5%). According to reports, the company's JV with the International Bank St Petersburg (IBSP) ,GUAP Pulkovo, KAPO and GTK Rossiya continues , with IBSP providing banking services to the venture.

Article ID: 2828