MOSCOW, Russian Federation — MTS (NYSE: MBT; MOEX: MTSS), Russia’s leading telecommunications operator and digital services provider, announces the decisions reached at the meeting of the Board of Directors (“BoD” or “the Board”) held on July 29, 2019.

At the meeting, the Board took the following decisions:

·                                 To call for and set September 30, 2019 as the date of an Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders (“the EGM”);

·                                 To set the record date for the Company’s shareholders entitled to participate in the EGM as September 6, 2019;

·                                 To recommend that the EGM approves semi-annual dividends of RUB 8.68 per ordinary MTS share (RUB 17.36 per ADR), or a total of RUB 17.3 billion (RUB 17,345,798,747.48), based on H1 2019 financial results;

·                                 To recommend that the EGM set the record date for shareholders entitled to receive dividends for H1 2019 for October 14, 2019;

·                                 To approve the cost for audit services; and

·                                 To approve the agenda for the EGM, as well as procedures surrounding the preparation and organization of the EGM.

In addition, the Board also approved the following composition of the MTS Management Board, effective August 1, 2019:

·                                 Alexey Kornya, President & CEO;

·                                 Inessa Galaktionova, First Vice President for Telecommunications;

·                                 Vyacheslav Nikolaev, First Vice President for Customer Experience & Marketing;

·                                 Ilya Filatov, Vice President for Financial Services;

·                                 Maria Golyandrina, Vice President for Human Resources;

·                                 Alexander Gorbunov, Vice President for Strategy & Development;

·                                 Ruslan Ibragimov, Vice President for Government Relations & PR;

·                                 Andrey Kamensky, Vice President for Finance;

·                                 Dmitry Khomchenko, Vice President for Information Technology;

·                                 Valery Shorzhin, Vice President for Cloud & Digital Solutions; and

·                                 Vice President & CEO of MTS Media (TV services) — vacant, to be filled in the near future.

Finally, the Board also approved the following new positions, which will report directly to the President & CEO:

·                                 Andrei Ushatsky, Vice President for Technology;

·                                 Arkady Sandler, Director of the MTS Artifical Intelligence Center;

·                                 Leonid Tkachenko, Director of the MTS Big Data Center; and

·                                 Julia Romashkina, Director of Corporate Ethics & Compliance.

Felix Evtushenkov, Chairman of the MTS Board of Directors, commented: “MTS continues to steadily and consistently strengthen its leadership on the telecoms market, transforming from classical connectivity toward a broader digital ecosystem. In today’s world, it’s critical we continue evolving into a multi-faceted integrator of cutting-edge services and solutions that leverage synergies between proven technologies and new innovations. Updating our organizational structure will enable us to better unleash our technological potential, contribute to the digitalization of the Russian economy, and help improve the quality and comfort of people’s lives.”

“In order to launch a fully fledged ecosystem of digital products it’s critical we set up separate functional business lines, as well as deploy innovative teams within independently managed business units. By allocating product teams with fit-for-purpose capabilities, we are empowering them with decision-making accountability and enabling them to agilely adapt to changing market conditions,” said Alexey Kornya, MTS President & CEO. “In effect, each of our existing 100 million mobile subscribers is already a customer within our digital ecosystem. Going forward, our goal is to develop additional high-quality services for our individual, private, and public clients that leverage the latest innovations in big data analytics, artificial intelligence, 5G connectivity, and the Internet of Things.” 

Biographies of newly appointed members of the management board

Ilya Filatov will serve in his new capacity as MTS Vice President for Financial Services in addition to his existing role as CEO of MTS Bank, where he is also a member of the board. Having joined the bank in 2014 as First Deputy Chairman of the Management Board, he was appointed the bank’s chief executive in 2015. In addition, he also serves on the boards of RTK and East-West Unified Bank S.A. (EWUB). Prior to joining MTS, he held a series of leadership positions at UralSib Bank from 2005 to 2014, including Deputy Charman of the Managemnt Board.

Mr. Filatov holds a degree from the Moscow State Academy of Water Transport, as well as an MBA from the Higher School of International Business of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy & Public Administration.

Dmitry Khomchenko was appointed MTS’s Director of Information Technology in 2014. He first joined the company in 2006 and rose through a series of IT leadership roles, beginning in a regional capacity and relocating to MTS corporate headquarters in 2011. From 2015-2019 he concurrently worked as CEO of Sitronics Telecom Solutions, and since 2015 he has also been a member of the supervisory board of Nvision Czech Republic a.s.

Mr. Khomchenko holds a degree with honors in Information Systems from Russia’s Amur State University.