Yesterday, the shareholders dismissed Sergey Frolov and Sergey Cherkaev, appointing Boštjan Napast, Helena Ploj Lajovic and Polona Marinko new members for a four-year term.

Appointed for another term were Yevgeny Zverev and Dmytri Davidov, while Janko Jenko and Mitja Križaj continue to represent Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH), which manages the state's controlling, 25% stake.

The changes reflect efforts to improve the standards of corporate management at the company and group, Ljubljana-based SIJ said in a press release on Monday.

However, Delo reports that since Boris Zubitsky died, major changes have been taking place at SIJ, which is run by his son Andrey Zubitsky and Dymitri Bochkarev.

Andrey's brother Yevgeny Zubitsky is said to have started meddling with business decisions, although he is neither on the management nor the supervisory board.

According to Delo, these developments were the reason why the previous management, and some 25 senior managers and development experts left the company last year.

Delo also reports that yesterday's overhaul of the supervisory board was an attempt by CEO Andrey Zubitsky to strengthen his influence at the company.

The CEO is also the director of Dilon, the company which owns three quarters of SIJ.

According to Delo, SSH is in favour of the overhaul because it was dissatisfied with Yevgeny Zubitsky's meddling with corporate governance.

However, the paper notes that the new supervisors are hardly independent: Napast is the CEO of energy company Geoplin, which is SIJ's major supplier, while Frolov, Cherkaev, Ploj Lajovic and Marinko are all employed at SIJ, thus supervising their own work.

Apart from steel companies, the SIJ group has a food division after it took over Slovenian poultry producer Perutnina Ptuj a few years ago.

The group has a workforce of almost 7,500 in Slovenia and abroad. It posted EUR 13.7m in net profit in the first nine months of 2017, a drop from EUR 28.5m in the same period 2016.

Meanwhile, its sales revenue increased by 19.7% to 763.5 million euro, SIJ data released in November show.