Rostelecom Board of Directors approves the issue of additional ordinary shares in Rostelecom as part of the second stage of its reorganisation

Moscow – August 5, 2013 – Rostelecom, Russia’s national telecommunications operator, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved the decision to increase the Company’s share capital through the issue of an additional 1,582,234,000 ordinary shares[1]. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors, held on August 5^th, 2013.

As a result of the second stage of the reorganisation 1,071,502,300 of the newly issued shares are planned to be placed in favour of Rosimuschestvo, a major Svyazinvest shareholder. The remaining shares will only be technically issued and will be cancelled in-line with legal requirements.

Once the reorganisation is complete, Rostelecom’s share capital structure is expected to be divided into 2,669,204,301 issued ordinary shares and 242,831,469 issued preferred shares (following the cancellation of 1,345,556,268 ordinary shares currently held by Svyazinvest).

The additional share issue is being conducted to facilitate the merger of Svyazinvest and 20 other affiliate companies[2] with Rostelecom, which has been designed to eliminate the cross-ownership between Rostelecom and Svyazinvest.