OREANDA-NEWS. Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL, MOEX: MTLR), a leading Russian mining and metals company, announces that the extraordinary general meeting of the company’s shareholders took place.

The shareholders approved the following decisions:

1. To terminate early the powers of members of Mechel OAO’s Board of Directors.

2. To elect the following persons as members of Mechel OAO’s Board of Directors:

  • Vladimir V. Gusev
  • Yury N. Malyshev
  • Vladimir Y. Korovkin
  • Igor V. Zyuzin
  • Alexander N. Kotsky
  • Alexander D. Orischin
  • Oleg V. Korzhov
  • Alexey G. Ivanushkin
  • Tigran G. Khachaturov

3. To approve the company’s charter in a new version.

4. To approve the company’s bylaw on the General Meeting of Shareholders in a new version.

5. To approve the company’s bylaw on the Board of Directors in a new version.

Results of the voting on issues # 6, 7, 8, 9 were not calculated due to lack of quorum.

“On today’s meeting, we did not manage to secure the number of votes of our minority shareholders (holders of common shares and ADRs) required to approve the deals with the lender banks on providing additional suretyships and pledges. We think that one of the reasons why this happened was due to requirements on disclosure of information on ADR holders, recently introduced into Russian law. ADR holders account for two thirds of our minority shareholders. Additional difficulties also arose out of the fact that many de facto holders receive information through a chain of brokers and did not receive the depositary’s instructions on voting in allotted time.

“We will bring the issues of approval of those deals to the next general shareholders’ meeting and will continue to work on persuading our shareholders to take part in the vote. I would like to offer special gratitude to Mechel’s Russian shareholders who demonstrated unequalled unity and solidarity by voting in support of the company,” Mechel OAO’s Chief Executive Officer Oleg Korzhov noted.

Mechel is an international mining and steel company which employs over 67,000 people. Its products are marketed in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa. Mechel unites producers of coal, iron ore concentrate, steel, rolled products, ferroalloys, heat and electric power. All of its enterprises work in a single production chain, from raw materials to high valueadded products.