Russian airline Aeroflot revealed the names of the candidates to the board nominated by two new mystery shareholders.

The shareholders, two offshore companies, Carroll Trading SA and Nimegan Trading, whose owners have not been named, bought stakes of around 10 percent each in Aeroflot in May.

The market was hoping for clues about the new stakeholders by looking at who was proposed as director.

An Aeroflot official said that three new names were an official from a subsidiary of Russian Aluminum, Russia's largest producer of the metal, and one each from investment houses Profit House and Prospekt.

RusAl has denied it owns any Aeroflot shares, so Russian media have instead linked one of RusAl's owners, billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich, to the purchase of Aeroflot stock.

Abramovich, also a co-owner of oil firm Sibneft, has not commented. Sibneft has denied owning any Aeroflot shares.

Profit House was set up by Sibneft, YUKOS and Gazprom subsidiary Stroitransgaz to bid for mid-sized oil proucer ONAKO in a 2000 tender. Profit House lost.

The vote on the board will be at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting Sept. 6. The state has 51.17 percent of the company.

Chief executive Valery Okulov, who has led wide changes to the airline to modernize it, was also proposed again to the board, Aeroflot said. Analysts have said the entry of the new shareholders is not likely to lead to Okulov's immediate dismissal. His contract expires next year.

Prospekt said in a statement that its nominee for the Aeroflot board, Prospekt general director Mikhail Vinchel, had wide experience defending the interests of minority shareholders as a board member at several companies.

The names of the other new nominees were Alexander Komrakov, the director of the corporate relations department of Russian Aluminum Management, part of RusAl, and Alexander Nemtsov, executive director of Profit House.