Over the past week, more than 20 media sources disseminated misleading information discrediting the business reputation of URALCHEM JSC and its management.

Those publications falsely accuse URALCHEM of attempting a corporate raid on Togliattiazot PJSC as well as supporting fascist parties in the Baltic states, money siphoning abroad, bribing law enforcement agencies, mass dismissal of employees at one of the holding's branches, and a sharp deterioration of the environmental situation in regions where the company is present, as a result of its production activities.

In this regard, URALCHEM officially declares the following. The company exercises its rights as a shareholder in Togliattiazot PJSC in strict compliance with the Federal Law “On Joint-Stock Companies”. Over a period of six years, URALCHEM has been urging the management of PJSC Togliattiazot to respect the rights of minority shareholders and stop the illegal practices accompanying the production and economic activities of Togliattiazot. All actions that URALCHEM JSC undertakes in relation to Togliattiazot are within the existing legislative field.

The Komsomolsky District Court of Togliatti is currently trying a criminal case against the former management of Togliattiazot PJSC, Sergey and Vladimir Makhlai, and Yevgeny Korolev, as well as Andreas Zivy, owner of the Swiss company Ameropa AG, and Beat Ruprecht, director of another Swiss company Nitrochem Distribution AG - all charged for embezzlement of 85 billion rubles. In this criminal case, URALCHEM JSC is recognized as an injured party having suffered material damage in the amount of more than 10 billion rubles caused by the actions of the criminal defendants.

URALCHEM officially declares that the information disseminated in the aforementioned media materials is deliberately false and discredits the honor, dignity and business reputation of the company and its management. In particular, those articles contain hollow allegations about the company finding itself in financial distress, which is far from being the case. In 2018, our EBITDA exceeded 37.7 billion rubles. URALCHEM complies with its obligations to the state and society: in 2018, over 1.7 billion rubles were paid to the Russian budget in taxes, while the total investment in the acquisition of fixed assets and modernization amounted to 4.4 billion rubles, and 377 million rubles were allocated for environment protection activities. The company's products are successfully exported to more than 90 countries. URALCHEM maintains constructive relationships with creditor banks, with all the company’s loan responsibilities being fulfilled wholly and timely.

In our opinion, such biased publications of the same template is a part of a targeted PR campaign designed to put pressure on the court and discredit URALCHEM as the injured party in the criminal case against the former management of Togliattiazot PJSC.

In order to protect its business reputation, URALCHEM JSC reserves the right to take measures provided for by Russian legislation.