Maxim Barsky in spotlight over attempt to oust Urals Energy board

Maxim Barsky, former deputy chief executive and heir apparent of defunct Russian oil group TNK-BP, has emerged as the figurehead for an attempt to oust the board of Aim-quoted Urals Energy.

Shareholders controlling just under 31 per cent of the oil producer and refiner have demanded an extraordinary meeting in the next month to elect a new board charged with turning round the company's fortunes.

Alpcot Capital Management, a specialist investor in eastern Europe, alongside fellow shareholder Fire East Corporation, is calling for the installation of Mr Barsky as chairman, along with the election of TNK-BP's former chief oil trader Jonathan Kollek and existing Urals board member Torbjorn Ranta as directors of a slimmed down board.

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the leading shareholders said all three of the proposed directors "have a proven longstanding track record of successful operation of oil companies in Russia".

The shareholder revolt, if successful, would see existing chairman Andrew Shrager removed from the board, along with chief executive Alexei Maximov and remaining directors Leonid Dyachenko, Aleksey Ogarev, Ingeborg Srenger and Stephen Buscher.

Urals Energy was set up in Cyprus in 2003 with an initial investment of $80m made by founding investors who had worked together in accumulating oil and gas assets. It was eventually sold to Russian oil group Lukoil.

The company raised a further £64m at 240p a share when it floated on Aim, London's junior market, in 2005 in an IPO that valued Urals' equity at £198m. However, its shares have generally traded at below 10p since 2009 as the company's operations have contracted to licences held in the Barents Sea and Sakhalin Island off eastern Siberia's coast where Urals also operates a refining business.

On Wednesday shares stood at 6.9p, valuing its equity at just £17m.

Urals confirmed it had received a request to hold an EGM to consider the removal of all but one of its existing board but indicated that it would decline to comment further until the release of interim results later this week.

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Matra, which emerged last year as Mr Barsky's own Aim-quoted vehicle, has itself failed to strike deals in the former Soviet Union and was now concentrating its efforts on securing depleted US oilfields ripe for redevelopment, he said.

However Mr Barsky, once groomed by BP to take command of its Russian joint venture TNK-BP, said Urals had failed to deliver value while absorbing excessive salary and central office costs.

"The company has lost most of its assets," Mr Barsky said. "The company needs to develop assets - if you can't develop it [an asset], sell it."

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