OREANDA-NEWS. On 18 June 2008 was announced, that Uralsvyazinform held its annual general shareholders meeting on the results of 2007 activities in Tyumen.

In line with the agenda, the shareholders approved the annual financial statement, the annual accounting reports, including the company’s profits and losses (profit and loss accounts), as well as allocation of profits (including dividend payouts) and the losses incurred by the company in fiscal 2007.

The shareholders’ meeting adopted a decision to pay out dividends on Uralsvyazinform’s 2007 activities as follows:

- 0.047031 rubles per preferred share before August 3, 2008;

- 0.022821 rubles per common share before December 15, 2008.

The total amount of dividend payments amounts to Rub 1,105.6 mln or 30% of the company’s 2007 net profit based on Russian Accounting Standards. The rest of net (retained) profit for a total of Rub 2,579.7 mln was allocated to increasing the company’s equity capital.

Based on the results of the voting, 11 people were elected to the Board of Directors of Uralsvyazinform:

Boris Dmitrievich ANTONYUK - Deputy Minister of Information Technologies and Communication of the Russian Federation

Yury Alexandrovich BILIBIN - First deputy general director of Sky Link

Alla Borisovna GRIGORYEVA - Deputy director of the Department of Corporate Governance and Legal Support, Svyazinvest

Gennady Viktorovich ZHELTYAKOV - Advisor to the general director of Svyazinvest

Sergey Mikhailovich KERBER - Director of Investments, Leader (private pension fund asset management company)

Olga Grigoryevna KOROLEVA - Chief accountant, Svyazinvest

Vladimir Anatolyevich STATIN - General director of not-for-profit partnership Association for the Protection of the Interests of Shareholders of Enterprises and Organizations

Dmitry Yurevich TUSHUNOV - Head of Research Department, chief economist of Leader (private pension fund asset management company)

Anatoly Yakovlevich UFIMKIN - General director, Uralsvyazinform

Evgeny Alexandrovich CHECHELNITSKY - Deputy general director, Svyazinvest

Anton Anatolyevich SHCHEGOLIKHIN - Executive director, Svyazinvest

The following members were elected to the audit committee of Uralsvyazinform:

Valentina Fedorovna BEREMYANINA - Deputy director of the Department of Corporate Governance and Legal Support, Svyazinvest

Yan Sergeyevich GRINCHENKO - Chief expert of the Department of Corporate Governance and Legal Support, Svyazinvest

Svetlana Fedorovna KARTUZOVA - Chief expert of the Department of Accounting, Taxation and Statistics, Svyazinvest

Elena Olegovna KONKOVA - Chief expert of the Department of Internal Audit, Svyazinvest

Ivan Vladimirovich TOPOLYA - Deputy Chief Accountant, Svyazinvest

Olga Sergeyevna CHETVERKINA - Chief expert of the Department of Internal Audit, Svyazinvest

Dmitry Alexandrovich SHOROKHOV - Deputy head of the Department of Economics and Finance, Svyazinvest

The meeting approved KPMG as the company’s auditor that will perform a mandatory audit of its accounting reports and financial statement drafted to Russian Accounting Standards for 2008.  This audit firm was earlier declared the winner of a tender among audit companies.

By decision of the shareholders meeting the new version of Uralsvyazinform’s charter was approved, as well as the new version of the Statute on the Audit Committee, the new version of the Statute on the Board of Directors, amendments were made to the Statute on the Board of Managers, and guidelines were established for calculating the annual salaries of members of the Board of Directors.  In addition, shareholders voted to terminate Uralsvyazinform’s participation in the Association for Regional Mobile Communication Operators.

The General Director of Uralsvyazinform, Anatoly Ufimkin, had the following to say: “The year 2007 was a special one for Uralsvyazinform.  During the year the company marked its 5th anniversary of the establishment of a regional company.  By pooling our resources, abilities and potentials a powerful unified company was formed which enjoys great authority both in Russia and abroad. Over the past five years over 720,000 new telephone lines have been connected, and the number of cellular subscribers has risen more than 10-fold, exceeding 5 mln.

Perhaps the company’s main accomplishment was boosting its capitalization, which topped \\$US 2 bln.  Speaking of the results achieved directly in 2007, the company managed to fulfill all the targets set by its shareholders.  The largest-scale reform of the year was the introduction of tariff plans on local voice services.  One of the main business targets was to achieve strong growth in the broadband Internet segment.

In 2007, the number of broadband Internet users rose 2.5 times, reaching 295,000. As a result of faster growth compared to its competitors, the company’s share of the datacom market exceeded 55% in its coverage area.  The key focus was on rolling out the cellular business, which, along with broadband Internet access, has been driving growth at Uralsvyazinform. On the whole, the company’s mobile business showed its efficiency in the face of a fiercely competitive market.  In 2007 revenue from providing cellular communication increased 22% compared with 2006, while datacom and ISP surged 49%.  As a result, the share of unregulated services in the company’s overall earnings increased to 42%.