Severstal Mining Division launches Shared Services Centre

Moscow, Russia, 15 June 2010 – Severstal, a leading Russian metals and mining major and BearingPoint, an international management and technology consulting firm, announced today the successful launch of the Severstal Shared Services Centre.

The reasons for consolidating the financial function at the Shared Services Centre were the diverse geography of Severstal operations, lack of standardised financial information, large volumes of transactions, high labour costs for basic operations and company’s ambitious merger and acquisition plans.

The project objective was to centralise and standardise the financial function of Severstal Mining Division by establishing a Shared Services Centre and thus improving the efficiency and reducing the costs.
The Shared Financial Services Centre project team was made of Severstal specialists and BearingPoint consultants, who jointly designed business processes, developed services and quality management procedures, drafted Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and organised and delivered training and change management efforts. The Severstal Shared Services Center Project commenced in 2009 and the Center began operations on December 31, 2009.

As a result of this transition the company has consolidated such important financial areas as accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets accounting, payroll accounting, IAS adjustments, payments, loans accounting, tax accounting, period closure, financial and tax reporting, tax expert review and tax audit support.
Severstal Shared Services Centre General Director Sergei Dunaev noted, "The headcount of the newly established Shared Services Centre is 40 per cent less than that we have for the same functions before and management headcount was reduced by 70 per cent. This enables us to significantly reduce our costs, improve manageability and achieve greater efficiency in resource management. The new model improves out company's appeal to investors and provides company management and shareholders with access to actual and up-to-date information about our business. This will also help us to speed up integration of new acquisitions in our corporate setup."

"One of the key success factors for the project was Severstal top management involvement in all phases of the project. Also, very important was the fact that Severstal Recourses key resources and BearingPoint consultants worked as one professional team,” noted Natalia Krasnoperova, head of BearingPoint’s Russian practice, “A business scheme that is widely popular in the world today will allow Severstal not only significantly cut the costs but also achieve a greater transparency and efficiency in management."

About Severstal

Severstal is an international vertically integrated steel and mining company with a listing on the Russian Trading System (RTS), on Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX) and on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It operates high-quality assets in North America and Europe. In 2009 Severstal produced 16.7m tonnes of steel, posting revenues of USD 13.05 bn. The company’s 2009 EBITDA was USD 844m.

www.severstal.com

About BearingPoint

BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consulting company serving clients in commercial, financial and public sectors. Having extensive industry experience, deep professional expertise and insight into the Russian market, we help our clients determine the right track from strategy to execution by delivering on time and within budget, ensuring a comprehensive project approach. Our mission is to create innovative and practical solutions that help our clients get sustainable results.
Among our strategic partners are leading technology providers such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard. Our Alliance Partners enhance BearingPoint's ability to solve client challenges by helping us to deliver. BearingPoint is known for high quality of services and enjoys reputation of a reliable consultant. The company has established long-term partnerships with largest companies and organizations.

BearingPoint operates in 14 countries of the world: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.