OREANDA-NEWS. November 7, 2012. New chief executive officers have been put in charge of OJSC Kommunarka (Minsk) and OJSC Spartak (Gomel) following President Lukashenko’s decision to disband advisory boards of Belarus’ top-notch confectioneries and sack their top managers.

Ivan Danchenko, former chief of Belarus’ state-owned food industries concern Belgospischeprom has been appointed Director General of OJSC Kommunarka; Oleg Zhidkov, chief of commerce of Gomel Region Administration, has been put in charge of OJSCSpartak.

It was on October 12 when Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko voiced a proposal to dismiss CEOs of those two Belarusian confectionery enterprises.

While holding a conference focused on development trends in Belarus’ confectionery industry, Lukashenko suggested putting Danchenko in charge of Kommunarka “to put things in order and show how to make business.”

Addressing present-day chiefs of Kommunarka and Spartak, Natalia Kot and Olesia Samsonova, respectively, the president suggested offering them new jobs at other enterprises. “Give them a job within a month period and keep me posted, with monthly reports about their progress. If they work fine, we won’t hurt and they will keep on working,” Lukashenko said.

Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko ordered to disband the supervisory boards at the Belarusian confectionery companies Spartak and Kommunarka following Friday’s government session, which focused on the development of the national confectionery industry.

Lukashenko reminded the gathering that he had given instructions to closely analyze what had been going on at those enterprises since the Soviet times. He was interested to learn how they were privatized, who the owners were, how the enterprises were assessed for the court to pass a ruling. “The court has passed its ruling. Who failed to fulfil the ruling? The supervisory boards did. Starting tomorrow the supervisory boards must be disbanded,” Lukashenko said.

Belarus is looking forward to the arrival of good-faith investors, who are ready to pursue honest and transparent business practices. “Belarus will welcome honest investors, who receive one thousand rubles from the people to pay back two thousand tomorrow. We don’t welcome those, who take one thousand, hand out a tiny dividend of 100 rubles, shout from the rooftops about how great they are, and secretly shove millions of dollars into their pockets in proceeds from dodgy schemes to procure raw materials and sell merchandise via the companies they control. We are well aware of such things, it is a very simple scheme”, Lukashenko said.

Following the ruling of the court, the state-owned stake in Kommunarka will rise from 27.07% to 57.8%, Spartak – up from 16.06% to 60.2%.

As formerly reported, shareholders of Belarus’ largest confectionery Kommunarka gathered an extraordinary meeting on July 24 to vote down the initiative aimed at increasing the state-owned stake in the confectionery enterprise by offering additional shares for sale.

They had planned to increase the company’s statutory capital by selling 70,290 additional shares worth Br47.631 billion (USD 5.746 million), USD 81.7 apiece, to the state. If the shareholders had approved the deal, the government would get a controlling interest in Kommunarka.

Kommunarka Confectionery was founded in 1931. In May 1994 the enterprise was transformed into a joint-stock company, with a 49% share owned by individuals and 51% owned by entities, including 22.5% - American MOL Corporation, 22% - the government of Belarus.

The government of Belarus had also planned to regain control over OJSC Spartak by buying up stakes from individuals and forcing the company to opt for an additional issue of shares.

Established in 1924, Spartak confectionery was converted into an open joint stock company in 1994 to be later transformed into a Belarusian-American joint venture. The shareholding structure includes individual shareholders, Double Star International Ltd, Belarus’ State Property Foundation, Triostar.