Rosneft hires Gazprom’s Baranov to head investor relations

MOSCOW (Bloomberg) -- OAO Rosneft hired Andrey Baranov from OAO Gazprom to head investor relations as Russia’s largest oil producer seeks to add institutional shareholders.

Rosneft also appointed Andrey Gromadin, a former vice president at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Moscow, as Baranov’s deputy, it said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement.

The hirings will help state-controlled Rosneft widen its investor portfolio and “create additional drivers for the company’s market-capitalization increase,” it said.

In appointing Baranov, Rosneft gains an executive with more than seven years’ experience at another large, state-controlled company, where he held a similar post. While Rosneft is only three-quarters of Gazprom’s size, its output has more than doubled since 2008 after a series of acquisitions.

Sergei Kupriyanov, a spokesman for Gazprom, confirmed that Baranov had left the company. Ivan Khromushin will stand in until a permanent replacement is found, Kupriyanov said.