Vimpelcom: Altimo Can Now Elect Fourth Board Member

MOSCOW -(Dow Jones)- Altimo, the telecommunications holding of Russian private equity group Alfa Group, can now appoint a fourth member to the board of mobile phone operator Vimpel Communications, a Vimpelcom spokeswoman told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.

The company is due to elect a new board at its annual shareholder meeting Friday.

An affiliate of Altimo said in in a disclosure filed Monday that it has increased its stake in VimpelCom to 44.0%, which, under the terms of the company's by-laws, allows a shareholder to appoint up to four board members.

Altimo and Norway's Telenor, the company's two strategic shareholders have been involved in a tussle for control of the company for over two years.

However, a Telenor spokeswoman said the changes in the shareholder structure would come too late to affect Friday's annual general meeting, as the date for recording voting rights was over a month ago.

"On that date, Altimo definitely didn't have over 44%," the spokeswoman said.

She argued that Altimo's raising of its holding above the threshold level would in any case have only the marginal effect of reclassifying the 'independent' director nominated by Altimo as an official Altimo representative.

At present, Telenor and Alfa each have the right to appoint three of their own representatives to the board and to nominate one 'independent' representative each.

If either shareholder raises its stake above 44%, she added, it loses the right to nominate the independent representative.

Telenor has a voting stake of 29.9% in Vimpelcom.

Company Web site: http://www.vimpelcom.com

-By Geoffrey T. Smith and Will Bland, Dow Jones Newswires; (+7 495) 974 8055; william.bland@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 27th June 2007