On 22nd June 2009 North-West Telecom’s Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders were held. The meeting was held in the form of joint attendance of the Company’s shareholders.

The annual report of the Company, annual accounts, including the profit and loss report (profit and loss account) of the Company, as well as the distribution of net income (including dividend payment) and losses of the Company based on the results of the fiscal year under report (2008), were approved by the shareholders in compliance with the agenda of the meeting.  

The meeting of the shareholders took a decision to pay the dividends on the basis of the results of NWT’s operation in 2008:   

- RUR 1.281 per one preferred share;

- RUR 0.617 per one ordinary share.

The dividend will be paid in the monetary form within the period from 15th August till 15th December 2009.

According to the voting results, the following members were elected to the Board of Directors of North-West Telecom:   

1. Vladimir I. Adzhalov – President, Optical Communication Equipment and Technologies LLC ;

2. Igor V. Belikov – Director, NP Russian Institute of Directors;

3. Vice-President for Regional Development, COMSTAR-OTS JSC, General director of STREAM-TV CJSC ;

4. Denis V. Kulikov - Executive Director, Investor s' Rights Protection Association;   

5. Corporate Governance Director, Moscow Representative Office, NCH Advisors, Inc.;

6. Counselor, RF Telecommunication and Mass Communications Minister;

7. Oxana V. Petrova - Head of the Corporate Governance and Legal Support Department, Svyazinvest JSC;

8. Alexandr Y. Provotorov - First Deputy General Manager, Svyazinvest JSC;

9. Ivan I. Rodionov – Professor, GU Higher School of Economics;

10. Yelena V. Umnova - Deputy General Manager, Svyazinvest JSC;

11. Yevgeny V. Yurchenko - General Manager, Svyazinvest JSC;

The Auditing Committee with the following members was elected:   

1. Vitaly V. Bekin - Deputy Head of the Corporate Governance and Legal Support Department, Svyazinvest JSC ;

2. Svetlana N. Bocharova - Head of the Accounting, Tax and Statistical Records Department, Svyazinvest JSC;

3. Tatyana Y. Zubova - Head of the Accounting, Tax and Statistical Records Department, Svyazinvest JSC;

4. Olga G. Korolyova – Chief Accountant, Svyazinvest JSC;

5. Yuliya A. Klyus - Group Leader of the Department of Economics and Finance, Svyazinvest JSC;

6. Pavel Y. Puchkov - Senior Specialist of the Strategic Development Department, Svyazinvest JSC;

7. Sergey V. Podosinov - Deputy Head of the Internal Audit Department, Svyazinvest JSC.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit CJSC was approved as the Company's auditor for the year 2009.

Respective decisions of the meeting of the shareholders approved new versions of the Company's Articles of Association and Provisions on the Board of Directors and established the standard of deductions for the calculation of the annual remuneration of the members of the Company's Board of Directors elected by the decision of the annual general meeting of the shareholders of NWT of 22.06.09.

Summing up the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders, Vladimir Akulich, Chief Executive officer, North-West Telecom, noted: "Last year was a very difficult for the Company, however, we have successfully passed this kind of a "strength test" under the conditions of the financial and economic crisis: we have achieved the planned figures, strengthened our market position, implemented a huge investment programme, created technological prerequisites for future revenues and given our shareholders the opportunity of getting a high dividend yield."

Upon completion of the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders, the newly elected Board of Directors held the first meeting, which elected Yevgeny V. Yurchenko as the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Dmitry V. Levkovsky and Yelena V. Umnova as the Deputy Chairpersons of the Board of Directors.

All materials for the Annual General Meeting of the Shareholders are available on the NWT’s corporate site in the Investor and Shareholder section. The official data will be announced after the minutes of the meeting are made up according to Article 63 of the Federal Law On Joint-Stock Companies.