Evraz announced that the entire board of directors has resigned from Russian steelmaker Evraz.
- With immediate effect, all non-executive directors have resigned.
- These include Britons Stephen Odell, Deborah Gudgeon
- This is because the UK sanctioned Evraz’s largest investors, Roman Abramovich
This comes just a few days after the FTSE 100 group that was listed in London were temporarily suspended by the UK sanctioning Roman Abramovich (oligarch with a 29% stake), who is the largest investor in the group.
Evraz stated that all 10 directors who are not executive members of the board have resigned immediately following the suspension of shares and sanctions.
Three Britons, Stephen Odell, Sir Michael Peat and Deborah Gudgeon are the directors who will be stepping down. They were all previously unwilling to step down from the board.
Peat, Prince Charles’ ex-aide and former treasurer to the Queen, has been with the company from 2011 and has received £1.9million from Evraz over the past decade.
He would stand down at the month’s end regardless of whether Evraz’s business was split into separate firms – a process that began long before the conflict with Ukraine.
Stephen Odell, an ex-executive at Ford Motor Company who earned £105,000 from Evraz last year, and Deborah Gudgeon, a former director at Deloitte have now announced their resignations.
Last week, James Rutherford, a British director, was the first to resign from the Evraz board as he took a moral stand against Putin.
The company’s chairman Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov are also leaving the company.
Evraz stated that Alexey Ivanov, chief executive, will continue to be the sole director.
It stated that “Evraz is deeply disturbed and saddened at the Ukraine-Russian conflict and hopes for a peaceful solution soon.”
After a series of extremely damaging claims against the Russian company, the rash of resignations follows.
Yesterday, the Foreign Office stated that Abramovich had ‘been involved with destabilizing Ukraine’ and was the ‘controlling power’ of FTSE 100-listed Evraz.
Officials claimed that Evraz could supply steel for the Russian military. This may have been used to produce the tanks lying on the outskirts of Kyiv. However, Evraz denies this claim, stating it only supplies steel to the infrastructure & construction sectors’.
Evraz and 36 other companies whose shares were suspended due to the Ukraine crisis have not been expelled by the London Stock Exchange or Financial Conduct Authority.
