The founder and largest shareholder of LUKOIL, Vagit Alekperov, who headed the company for almost 30 years, is leaving his post due to UK sanctions imposed against him. At the same time, LUKOIL became one of the few large Russian companies whose board of directors openly opposed military operations in Ukraine. After the departure of Mr. Alekperov, the post of head of the company will probably be taken by First Vice President Vadim Vorobyov as interim.
The founder of LUKOIL and the largest shareholder Vagit Alekperova decided to leave the post of head of an oil company and withdraw from the board of directors. LUKOIL is Russia’s largest private oil company, accounting for about a fifth of Russia’s production and about 2% of world oil production. The reasons for the departure of Mr. Alekperov are not explained, but on April 14 he was put on the British sanctions list due to a Russian military special operation in Ukraine. The sanctions were imposed despite the fact that the board of directors of Lukoil on March 3 publicly called for an end to the “armed conflict” in Ukraine. The company’s message expressed “concern over the ongoing tragic events in Ukraine and deepest sympathy for all those affected by this tragedy.”
At the end of last year, Vagit Alekperov owned 28.3% of the capital of LUKOIL, that is, he was not the controlling shareholder of the company. According to the interlocutors of Kommersant, the first executive vice president of the oil company Vadim Vorobyov may become the acting head of the company, this is also reported by RBC. Also among the candidates, the interlocutors of Kommersant called the first vice president of LUKOIL Alexander Matytsyn, he headed KPMG in the 1990s, since 1997 he has been vice president of LUKOIL. Mr. Vorobyov began his career in the industry in the late 1990s, in 2005 he became vice president of an oil company and oversaw the sale of petroleum products.
According to several interlocutors of Kommersant, the decision of Vagit Alekperov to leave the post of head of the company is still technical in nature and there were no such plans before the imposition of sanctions. However, there is a risk of new sanctions against Russian businessmen from the US and the EU if the armed conflict drags on, while LUKOIL has assets in the US and the EU. Until now, the majority of owners and managers of large Russian companies that have fallen under sanctions have reduced their share in them below the controlling stake and left the top management so that personal sanctions do not affect the work of the company itself. Nevertheless, there are also reverse examples: for example, the main owner of Severstal, Alexei Mordashov, having fallen under EU sanctions, did not report a decrease in control in the company. And the head of NOVATEK, Leonid Mikhelson, who fell under British sanctions at the same time as Vagit Alekperov, was re-elected by shareholders on April 21 to his post for another five years.
On the news of Vagit Alekperov’s departure, LUKOIL shares on the Moscow Exchange fell by 8%, dropping below 4 thousand rubles. for paper.
The practice of voluntarily resigning from positions in controlled companies and reducing their share in capital has become extremely widespread among representatives of the Russian business elite who are on the US, EU and UK sanctions lists, says Pavel Ickert, managing partner at Ickert & Partners law firm. “Such decisions are aimed at reducing the sanctions risks that arise in relation to organizations controlled by such persons, but in reality there is simply no unambiguous answer regarding their effectiveness. To date, in fact, there is only one example of a successful withdrawal from blocking American sanctions on SDN controlled by a businessman under personal sanctions – this is the story of Oleg Deripaska, Rusal and En +, ”he said. According to Pavel Ikkert, the departure of Mr. Alekperov from the post of head of LUKOIL significantly reduces the sanctions risks for the company, although “it is definitely not a panacea.”