EAHCISS News (English)

Gazprom declared record dividends of 51.03 Rubles per ordinary share (=102.06 Rubles for the 2 ordinary shares that represent 1 depositary receipt [ADR]) over the first half of 2022. Many investors were not able to convert their Gazprom depositary receipts into ordinary shares because of the refusal by brokers and (sub) custodians to facilitate this. As many of you are aware: Gazprom depositary receipts are not eligible for the payment of dividends due to changes in Russian legislation in April 2022. Once the depositary receipts are converted, investors can claim the unpaid dividends. At least 800 million euros in unpaid dividends is likely to fall back to Gazprom post September 2025. This is due to the statute of limitations in relation to unpaid dividends (3 years). In practice the amount will likely be higher as many investors that converted their ordinary shares post October 2022 have not yet claimed unpaid dividends due to the complexity of the procedure. According to Gazprom, 5.9...

The court in Zug (Switzerland) is responsible for the bankruptcy procedures of Nord Stream II. The court announced today (https://zg.ch/de/gerichte/zivil-und-strafrechtspflege/kantonsgericht#Mitteilung) that a debt restructering agreement was confirmed by the court. This should avoid the bankruptcy of Nord Stream II. The court's ruling has not yet been made public. We have attached the previous court ruling of the 9th of January 2025 for your reference. The full court press release consists of the following text (translated from German): " Press release dated 9 May 2025 By decision of the Cantonal Court of Zug EN 2022 2 of 9 May 2025, the restructuring agreement (dividend settlement) of 30 April 2025 concluded between Nord Stream 2 AG and its creditors, including Annexes 1 and 2, was confirmed by the court. Pursuant to Art. 307 para. 1 SchKG, the decision on the debt restructuring agreement may be appealed under the Code of Civil Procedure. Pursuant to Art. 307 para. 2 SchKG, ...

We earlier reported on the information the Clearstream released in their annual report. Euroclear has now too reported on this matter in their annual report (attached, p. 190). We'll quote the relevant part: " As of year-end 2024, Euroclear Bank holds amounts on restricted C- and I-accounts recognised off-balance sheet (see Notes II and III). These restricted accounts were opened unilaterally by NSD in 2023 in the name of Euroclear Bank as countermeasure to the interantional sanctions imposed. The amounts held on the restricted C- and I-accounts have significantly decreased and amount to resprectively to RUB 41.9 billion (0.4 billion €-equivalent) and RUB 9.7 billion (0.1 billion €-equivalent), compared to RUB 262 billion (2.6 billion €-equivalent) and RUB 19 billion (0.2 billion €-equivalent) last year. Between April and September 2024, Euroclear Bank's type C-account has been seized or debited on several occasions following Russian decrees for an amount of approximately...

The article published by Reuters yesterday raised some questions by some members. In this post we'll try to explain the situation.  On 19 March 2024, the President of the Russian Federation signed Decree No. 198 “On additional temporary measures of economic nature related to the performance of obligations under certain securities” (“Decree 198”): https://www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_472406/  Decree 198 establishes the procedure for receiving securities related payments owed to certain categories of holders from funds blocked in Type C accounts of nominee holders such as Clearstream and Euroclear. Article 9 of Decree 198 sets out what the Central Securities Depository (National Settlement Depository, NSD) has to do to have its obligations to international securities settlement systems duly performed under Russian law.  NSD waived its rights to an equivalent amount of balances on its accounts with Euroclear and Clearstream Banking, which remained blocked under EU...

Reuters published an article today on the unblocking of funds by Euroclear. This unblocking of funds is essentially part of an asset swap. Under Russian legislation NSD used the money in Euroclear's type C account to pay / compensate Russian investors for dividend and bond payments that were frozen in NSD's account in Euroclear. Now Euroclear is using these frozen funds to compensate Western investors for the money NSD took out of Euroclear's type C account in Russia. We will post a more extensive post on the Telegram channels over the coming days.

Razb0rka (https://t.me/RAZB0RKA | https://boosty.to/razb0rka) frequently publishes analytical reports on Russian companies. Their reports are very informative and highly recommended (so check out their channel and consider subscribing to them on Boosty). EAHCISS received approval from Razb0rka to translate and republish the reports they issue (in Russian) in English and German in the EAHCISS member portal. We will start to do so over the coming weeks.