OREANDA-NEWS. September 28, 2007. International rating agency Standard & Poor’s announced its decision to raise the Russian scale corporate governance rating of Volga Telecom from RCG 5.1 to RCG 5.2.  The company’s international rating confirmed at the level of RCG 5.

According to the agency’s analysts, the upgrade on the Russian scale reflects management’s commitment to improving control mechanisms, the establishment of risk management procedures and improved transparency.  The upgrade also reflects greater regularity in holding routine board of directors meetings.  Incidentally, it’s noteworthy that the audit committee still has no minority shareholder appointees. This is the main constraint on the company’s corporate governance rating.

According to Standard & Poor’s, other issues affecting the company’s corporate governance include “… positive changes in such areas as information disclosure, internal control and current business activity metrics”.

VolgaTelecom’s corporate governance rating is underpinned by four analytical components with a point system ranging from 1 to 10 on the international/Russian scale: 5/5 for ownership and external influence; 7/7.2 for (earlier 7/7.1) for shareholder rights and relations with financially interested parties; 5+/5.7 (earlier 5/5.4 for financial transparency, information disclosure and audit; 4+/4.6 (earlier 4/4.3) for composition and efficiency of the Board of Directors.

As noted by the General Director of VolgaTelecom Sergey Omelchenko, “the corporate governance upgrade shows once again that the company is on the road towards open dialog with the investment community and is attempting to develop transparent corporate governance procedures”.

For more complete information, please refer to Standard & Poor’s website at the following address: http://www.standardandpoors.ru/page.php?path=issuerr&id=78or Volga Telecom’s corporate website at http://www.vt.ru/6571.