The reform, backed by 95.43% of the 77.46% of shareholders who took part in the vote on Friday, is to be completed by July 1 next year. It provides for separating the company from its remaining power generating companies, including HydroOGK, with all its hydropower plants, and the Federal Grid Company, the System Operator, and wholesale and territorial generating companies (OGKs and TGKs).
The shareholders voted on Friday in a postal ballot, and UES announced the voting results on Tuesday.
Anatoly Chubais, the head of the state-controlled electricity monopoly, told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday that the shareholders' vote and a series of bills passed by the upper house of parliament last week had settled the issue of the liquidation of the UES monopoly. The bills are now to be signed into law by the president.
Chubais said the holding had allocated 102 billion rubles ($4 billion) to buy out shares from those shareholders who voted against the company reform or did not vote at all.
"But I don't think the amount of shares for sale will be considerable," he added, saying UES shares were currently traded at a price 5-6% lower than the price to be offered by the holding.
The UES chief executive also said he expected "capitalization of UES companies to grow further, and therefore acquisition of the stocks will bring profit rather than cause damage to the energy holding."
"We are ready to buy as many shares as possible," Chubais added.
The chief executive cited preliminary estimates as saying that the government would hold 76% in the Federal Grid Company after the reform is complete in July, and 60% in HydroOGK.
Russia's electricity chief also said that electricity tariffs for the general population after 2014 would no longer be regulated by the government.
"Government tariff regulation in electricity will remain in place only for three years after July 1, 2008," he said. "From 2011, the wholesale electricity sector must be 100% liberalized".
However, government regulation will continue for another three years after 2011 in certain isolated pricing zones such as the Far East, Russia's western exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea and some others, making up 10-15% of the country's electricity market, Chubais said.
Russia's electric power sector has undergone radical changes in recent years. The changes have been aimed at increasing the efficiency of power plants and developing the industry by attracting investment.
During the restructuring process, specialized structures have been created in place of the old vertically integrated companies.
By the end of the reforms, potentially competitive units of the industry - generation, sales and repair companies - will become mainly private and will compete with each other. However, natural monopoly functions - power transmission and dispatching - will remain state-controlled.
