Moscow: ALROSA President Andrey Zharkov has stepped down from his post, a source in the company told Interfax. Zharkov announced this at a planning meeting on Tuesday. Statement by the head of ALROSA will be reviewed by the Supervisory Board of the company. The issue has not yet formally been handed to the Supervisory Board, the source added.
Last week, Bloomberg reported citing its own sources that the Russian government is discussing the possibility of replacing the ALROSA's head. It was reported that Zharkov, who had been the company's president since April 2015, was at variance with the views of the officials holding the majority of seats on the Supervisory Board of ALROSA. The sources of Interfax noted that Zharkov had disagreements with officials from the Finance Ministry which is headed by Anton Silualov. The latter is also the head of the Supervisory Board of ALROSA.
At the end of December last year Zharkov, as one of the members of the Supervisory Board, voted against the company's budget cuts which include reducing long-term investments, capex and labor costs, and geological surveys. He considered spending cuts "too strong and unjustified," the representative of ALROSA said. Meanwhile, the head of ALROSA's Supervisory Board is a government representative, and the replacement has been supported by a majority of Zharkov's colleagues in the Board.
Bloomberg also reported that the only contender for the post of the diamond company's president is a 36-year-old son of the former head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov, who is now a vice president of Sberbank and a former head of SOGAZ insurance company.
A possible Zharkov's successor could also be a former senior vice president of ALROSA Igor Ryaschin, He was a deputy president after the resignation of a former ALROSA's head Fyodor Andreev in September 2014 until Zharkov's appointment in April 2015, sources told Interfax earlier. Ryaschin had left ALROSA after the contract expired in June 2016 and soon became an adviser to the Minister of Finance.
