TEN directors depart Evraz as the Russian steelmaker’s London-listed shares are suspended and Abramovich is sanctioned
- All non-executive directors have resigned from the board with immediate effect
- They include Britons Sir Michael Peat, Stephen Odell and Deborah Gudgeon
- It comes as the UK sanctioned Evraz biggest investors, Roman Abramovich
Sir Michael Peat, Prince Charles’ ex-aide and the Queen’s former treasurer, has quit Evraz board
The entire board of directors of Russian steelmaker Evraz has resigned, the company announced today.
It comes just a day after London-listed shares in the FTSE 100 group were temporarily suspended as the UK sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich, the group’s biggest investor with a 29 per cent stake.
In a statement to investors on Friday, Evraz said that in light of the sanctions and shares suspension, all of its 10 non-executive directors have resigned from the board with immediate effect.
The directors stepping down include three Britons – Sir Michael Peat, Stephen Odell and Deborah Gudgeon – all of whom previously refused to stand down from the board.
Peat, Prince Charles’ ex-aide and the Queen’s former treasurer, has been with the company since 2011 and has earned £1.9million from Evraz in the last decade.
He was going to stand down at the end of this month regardless, once part of Evraz’s business has been split into a separate firm – a process that started long before the war with Ukraine.
Ex-Ford Motor Company executive Stephen Odell – who made £105,000 from Evraz last year – and former Deloitte director Deborah Gudgeon have also now finally announced their resignation.
Last week, British director James Rutherford became the first to step down from Evraz board in a moral stand against Putin’s regime.
Other directors quitting the company are chairman Alexander Abramov, Alexander Frolov, Alexander Izosimov, oligarch Eugene Shvidler, Chelsea FC director Eugene Tenenbaum, Maria Gordon and Karl Gruber.
Chief executive Alexey Ivanov will remain as the sole director of the company, Evraz said.
It added: ‘Evraz is deeply concerned and saddened by the Ukraine-Russia conflict and hopes that a peaceful resolution will be found soon.’
The raft of resignations comes after a set of highly damaging claims about the Russian company.
Yesterday, the Foreign Office said Abramovich has ‘been involved in destabilising Ukraine’ and is the ‘controlling force’ of FTSE 100-listed Evraz.
And Evraz itself, officials said, potentially supplies ‘steel to the Russian military’, which may have been used in the production of the tanks lurking on the outskirts of Kyiv – a claim that Evraz has denied, saying it provided steel only to the ‘infrastructure and construction sectors’.
The London Stock Exchange and Financial Conduct Authority have still refused to take measures to boot out Evraz and the 36 other companies that have had their shares suspended over the Ukraine crisis.