RBC's financial performance

Main article on the company's history: RBC's history

2022: Net loss of RUR -180.94 million in Q1

For 1 sq. 2022, according to RAS, RBC received a net loss of -180.94 million rubles. This is reported in the interim reporting of the organization.

RBC's long-term liabilities according to RAS statements increased by 35.7%, reaching the level of 24.78 billion rubles. Short-term liabilities are 930.76 million rubles, which is 703.21% more than in the 1 quarter of 2021.

2021: RBC's net loss in 2021 amounted to RUB 146.58 million

In accordance with Russian Accounting Standards (RAS), RBC in 2021 received a net loss of -146.58 million rubles. This is reported in the annual statements of the issuer.

RBC's long-term liabilities according to RAS statements increased by 34.49%, reaching the level of 24.45 billion rubles. Short-term liabilities are 772.14 million rubles, which is 448.03% more than in 2020.

2020: Revenue growth by 2.4% to 6 billion rubles, profit 479 million rubles

RBC Group disclosed the consolidated financial statements under IFRS for 2020. In 2020, the company revised its approach to business segmentation. Segments "B2C Information and Services," "B2B Information and Services" and "Inspiration from RBC" were merged into one segment "Media/Information and Services."

The company's revenue grew by 2.4%, amounting to 6.0 billion rubles. RBC showed a net profit of 479 million rubles.

Revenues of the Media/Information and Services segment (including the rbc.ru portal, TV channel, newspaper and RBC magazine, etc.) decreased by 4.8% to 3.1 billion rubles. The decrease in advertising revenue of the holding primarily affected traditional advertising formats and occurred against the background of a decrease in the advertising market as a whole. A more serious drop in revenues was avoided due to revenue growth in Internet projects and the development of new advertising products. EBITDA of this segment amounted to 438 million rubles, profitability increased by 2.0 pp to 14.2%. This was facilitated by an increase in revenues from content special projects that cover all RBC platforms.

The second key segment of the Group - Digital Infrastructure, which includes the business of domain registration and hosting, increased revenues by 11.9% to 2.6 billion rubles. against the background of the launch of new services by the group's flagship - Ru-Center, as well as the expansion of the line of additional services for doing business on the Internet. EBITDA of this area increased to RUB 1.44 billion (+ 28.0%), profitability for this indicator increased by 7.0 pp to 54.5%.

Operating expenses decreased by 6.2%, amounting to 5.2 billion rubles, against the background of improving business processes and the development of modern management technologies. As a result, the company's operating profit amounted to 812.0 million rubles, an increase of two and a half times.

In the block of financial items, we note negative exchange rate differences on foreign currency loans in the amount of 289 million rubles. against positive 1.5 billion rubles. a year earlier. The company's debt burden remained at the same level - 15.3 billion rubles, its maintenance cost the company 1.1 billion rubles.

2018: Revenue 5.9 billion rubles, loss - 3.4 billion rubles

The company's revenue under IFRS for 2018 remained at the level of the previous year, amounting to 5.9 billion rubles.

Revenues of the main segment of B2C information and services (including the rbc.ru portal, RBC TV channel, RBC newspaper and magazine, etc.) also showed last year's result - 3.2 billion rubles. EBITDA of this segment amounted to 597 million rubles, while maintaining profitability at 18.6%.

The second largest revenue segment of the Group - "B2B Infrastructure," which includes the business of domain registration and hosting - increased revenues by 4.7% to 2.25 billion rubles. thanks to the launch of a completely new RU-CENTER website with a unique system of personal recommendations for domain names, an adaptive version for all platforms and a full-fledged site administrator panel. EBITDA of this area increased to 1.07 billion rubles. (+ 4.1%), the profitability for this indicator amounted to 47.5%.

Operating expenses increased by 1%, amounting to 5.32 billion rubles. It is worth noting a 7% reduction in commercial expenses to 1.37 billion rubles. due to a decrease in agency and commission fees. Labor costs increased by 1.7% to 1.5 billion rubles. Depreciation expenses showed an increase of 6.1%, amounting to 398 million rubles. As a result, the company's operating profit decreased by 5.5% - to 618 million rubles.

Net financial revenues of the company in the amount of 77 million rubles. replaced by gigantic expenses, amounting to 3.9 billion rubles. In recent years, this item has been significantly influenced by exchange rate differences in foreign currency debt: in 2017 they were positive and amounted to 774 million rubles, and in 2018 they became negative, amounting to 3.05 billion rubles. The company's debt burden for the reporting year increased from 14.5 billion rubles. up to 18.4 billion rubles.

As a result, the company showed a net loss of 3.4 billion rubles.

Analysts note that the company will not be able to bring net assets into a positive zone in the foreseeable future.

Business segments of the RBC Group of Companies at the end of 2018:

B2B infrastructure. Domain registration and hosting business. These are brands and operating companies included in the RU-Center Group of companies: RU-CENTER, Registrar P01, Reggi, Hosting Center, Spaceweb, Peterhost.

B2C information and services: rbc.ru portal, RBC TV channel, RBC magazine and newspaper. As well as thematic projects: RBC Real Estate, Autonews, RBC Style, RBC Sport.

B2B information and services. The segment is based on paid content access. Includes projects of RBC Research, RBC Conferences, RBC Quote and Public.ru.

Inspiration from RBC is presented by the RBC Prize.

Minor assets: LovePlanet.

2017: Decrease in net profit to RUB 527 mln

RBC Holding's net profit in IFRS 2017 decreased to 527 million (rubles RUB 2.1 billion in 2016).

The total revenue of the group increased by 6% compared to 2016 and amounted to 5926 million rubles.

The group's fastest growing business turned out to be Inspiration (responsible for holding the RBC Prize), which increased revenue by 55% to 31 million rubles.

In 2017, RBC's EBITDA grew by 20% to RUB 1.52 billion.

Operating profit amounted to 654 million, which is 39% more than in 2016^[1].

"We managed to maintain the margin of the main business areas not lower than the level of last year, and in general for the group of companies this figure was a record 18% over the decade. In 2017, we reduced the short-term debt burden by almost 25% by repaying and restructuring a number of loans, "commented Nikolai Molibog, CEO of RBC

.

Business segments of the RBC Group of Companies in 2017:

B2B infrastructure. Domain registration and hosting business. These are brands and operating companies included in the RU-Center Group of companies: RU-CENTER, Registrar P01, Reggi, Hosting Center, Spaceweb, Peterhost.

B2C information and services: rbc.ru portal, RBC TV channel, RBC magazine and newspaper. As well as thematic projects: RBC Real Estate, Autonews, RBC Style, RBC Sport.

B2B information and services. The segment is based on paid content access. Includes projects of RBC Research, RBC Conferences, RBC Quote and Public.ru.

Inspiration from RBC is presented by the RBC Prize.

Minor assets: LovePlanet and IT edition CNews.ru.

2016

Ru-Center and Loveplanet are the main points of growth in RBC's revenue for the year

In 2016, RBC Holding received a net profit under IFRS in the amount of 2.1 billion rubles.

At the end of 2016, total revenue RBC increased by 10% from 5.08 billion to 5.58 billion rubles. The largest revenue growth rate (+ 15%) was demonstrated by the holding member. RU-Center Group In second place is the dating service. Loveplanet

RBC's EBITDA in 2016 increased by 16% to RUB 556 million.

Business segments of the RBC Group of Companies in 2016:

B2C information and services - the segment is based on the advertising model of the business. These are RBC 360 projects, including the rbc.ru portal, RBC TV channel, RBC newspaper and RBC magazine. As well as thematic projects: RBC Real Estate, Autonews, RBC Style, RBC Sport.

B2B information and services - the segment is based on paid access. Includes RBC Research, RBC Conferences, QuoteTerminal and Public.ru.

B2B infrastructure is a domain registration and hosting business. These are assets included in the RU-Center Group of companies: RU-CENTER, Registrar P01, Reggi, Hosting Center, Spaceweb, Peterhost.

Inspiration from RBC - presented by the RBC Prize.

Minor assets - LovePlanet and IT edition CNews.ru.

1st half of the year: revenue growth by 15%

RBC's net profit under IFRS for the first half of 2016 amounted to RUB 1.32 billion. For the same period in 2015, RBC received a loss of RUB 235 million.

At the same time, revenue for six months increased by 15%, to 2.5 billion rubles.

The holding's profit from its main activities amounted to 56 million rubles, while a year ago it showed a loss of 184 million rubles.

The holding managed to increase its net profit due to foreign exchange income: 2.08 billion rubles. in the first half of 2016 against 231 million rubles^[2] six^[2].

At the end of the first half of 2016, RBC had 758 million rubles in its accounts.

According to the results of the second quarter of 2016, the group's total debt remained almost unchanged: 17.76 billion rubles against 17 billion rubles at the end of 2015 and 19.1 billion rubles at the end of the second quarter of 2015.

Sales growth of 16% in Q1

Sales growth compared to the 1 quarter of 2015 amounted to 16% or 154 million rubles. EBITDA of the RBC Group of Companies amounted to 68 million rubles, which is 186% more than EBITDA in Q1 2015. For the first time in several years, the company managed to achieve positive group EBITDA in the first quarter.

At the same time, it is clear that RBC's EBITDA structure for the 1st quarter of 2016 is dominated by services hosting and domain registrations () Ru-Center Group and sales of assets declared secondary, LovePlanet and. CNews.ru

2015

Results of the year: loss of 1.58 billion rubles, debt $263 million

At the end of 2015, the net loss of the RBC group of companies did not actually change and amounted to 1.58 billion rubles - against 1.6 billion in 2014. Long-term debt rose to 17 billion rubles ($263 million). Due to debts that Prokhorov postponed, but did not pay, the value of RBC shares on the stock exchange also continued to decline^[3]

The amount of interest payments on loans in 2015 amounted to 1.9 billion rubles RBC^[4].

According to the results of 2015, the total sales of RBC Group reached 5,086 million rubles, which is 3% more than in 2014. EBITDA of the group of companies reached 426 million rubles, which is 59% more than last year's figure. Business margins rose from 5.4% to 8.4%. In 2015, RBC for the first time in the last 4 years did not attract external financing or funds from the sale of assets for operating activities.

According to the results of 2015, RBC in terms of business structure is a company providing domain registration and hosting services. More than half of EBITDA is brought by the Ru-Center Group business and other infrastructure services.

Of the media assets, only the Internet direction showed a slight increase in revenue.

In 2015, RBC reduced remuneration to top managers of the holding to 21.2 million rubles, in 2014 these expenses amounted to 33.4 million rubles.

Total payments in favor of wages of employees almost did not change - 78.7 million rubles, against 77.3 million in 2014^[4].

1H 2015: Revenue cut by 2%

RBC's capitalization on the Moscow Exchange in April 2015 was estimated at 2.2 billion rubles.

RBC's revenue in the first half of 2015

2014

Results of the year: Revenue decreased to 4.9 billion rubles, net loss 6.9 billion rubles

RBC Group revenue in 2014 decreased by 10% to 4.9 billion rubles, net loss increased almost 6 times - up to 6.9 billion rubles, follows from the company's reporting on. IFRS But for the most part, this is a "paper" loss: 5.6 billion rubles. of it falls on losses from exchange rate differences.

Losses from exchange rate differences were almost completely formed from debt on a foreign currency loan in dollars, said a representative of RBC. At the end of 2014, the group's long-term liabilities amounted to 12.4 billion rubles, or $222 million^[5].

Among all the assets of RBC, the so-called traditional media feel the worst. Thus, the revenue of the business press segment (RBC newspaper and RBC magazine) in 2014 compared to 2013 decreased by 30% to 250 million rubles, and the loss on EBITDA almost 24 times. RBC TV channel lost 12% of its revenues, its EBITDA decreased 2.5 times. Revenue of the "business" segment Internet(rbc.ru, cnews.ru and other resources) also decreased (by 13%), but EBITDA this direction almost doubled.

Similarly, the revenue of the mass Internet segment decreased by 30%, but this direction became operationally profitable. The dynamics of revenue and profit was affected, among other things, by the sale of a number of assets (Utro.ru, Smotri.com, Readme.ru, Anekdot.ru). Finally, both revenues and EBITDA increased for hosting. As a result, RBC Group's total EBITDA grew 5-fold to RUB 266 million, compared to RUB 12 million in 2013.

It turns out that the revenues of the main areas of RBC decreased in 2014 more than the market. For comparison: according to the Association of Communication Agencies of Russia, advertising revenues of domestic TV channels in 2014 increased by 2%, print media - decreased by 11%, and the media advertising market decreased by 5%.

On the other hand, as RBC writes in its report, its revenue fell mainly due to the reduction "to an acceptable level" of non-cash transactions:

"Now this is only the information barter necessary for the marketing needs of the company."

Excluding barter and other non-core transactions, RBC's revenue decreased by only 2% in 2014. The representative of RBC clarified that information barter is mainly banners and ads in the press and on the RBC TV channel, which are issued in support of thematic events.

The Group expects that in 2015 its revenues from the media business will decrease by 3%, but in another year, in 2016, the company hopes for revenue growth of 15% at once. In terms of hosting revenues, RBC expects growth of 11% in 2015 and 6% in 2016.

One of the main risks to its business, the group indicates the inability to pay off debts on time.

Shortly before the publication of the IFRS statements, RBC issued a release in which a new line of business structure was introduced to more positively present the results of its operations.

Loss of RUB 529 mln for 9 months

According to RAS, for 9 months of 2014, RBC received a loss of 529,519 thousand rubles. The loss for the 9 months of 2014 was obtained as a result of a change in the exchange rate^[6].

In the first 9 months of 2014, the company's capitalization decreased from 2.07 billion rubles to 1.44 billion rubles. At the end of the third quarter of 2014, the amount of long-term borrowed funds of the company amounted to 9.3 billion rubles.

Net loss for 6 months (-822 million rubles)

For the 6 months of 2014, RBC showed a net loss of RUB 822 million under IFRS (the same figure for 2013 amounted to RUB 860 million) ^[7].

According to the statements, the Group increased its loss from core activities from 217 million rubles in the first half of 2013 to 364 million in the same period of 2014. Revenue decreased from 2.5 billion rubles to 2.2 billion. The loss per share remained at the same level and amounted to -2.29 rubles (-2.36 in H1 2013). It seems that the reduction in costs from 2.653 to 2.607 billion, and the fact that over the period of 2013, losses from foreign currency revaluation amounted to 502 million, and in 2014 only 180^[8].

As for segment operations, 4 out of 7 showed worse results than last year:

2013

Financial results of the year: revenue -2%, EBITDA 12 million rubles

In March 2013, Uralsib analysts revised their financial model of RBC and reduced forecasts for 2013 in terms of revenue and EBITDA - by 16% to 6.9 billion rubles. (219 million dollars) and 11% to 1.1 billion rubles. (34 million dollars), respectively. At the end of the year, the company's performance was much lower than even this pessimistic forecast.

Million rubles	2013	2012	Rev.
Revenue | 5 591 | 5 070 | 10%
Internet	2 689	2 638	2%
Advertisement | 2 293 | 2 233 | 3%
Services | 396 | 405 | -2%
Domains and Hosting	1 534	1 169	31%
Television	999	846	18%
Business press	369	417	-12%
Operating expenses | 5 579 | 4 597 | 21%
EBITDA | 12 | 473 | -97%

At the same time, in the calculations published by the company, the amount of revenue for 2012 has changed. When summarizing the results for this period, it was announced that RBC's revenue for 2012 amounted to 5,676 million rubles, and not 5,070 million. The discrepancy is due to the fact that the data for 2012 included the revenue of the Salon publishing house (sold in 2013) and the RBC Money payment system (sold in 2012), the company told TAdviser. When comparing "all RBC" in 2012 and "all RBC" in 2013, revenue decreased by 2%.

1st half of the year: advertising on the Internet falls, on TV it grows

The company's financial results in the first half of 2013

| EBITDA| 57| -9| 733%

Million rubles	1st half of 2013	1st Half Year 2012	Rev.
Revenue | 2 728 | 2 448 | 11%
Internet	1 149	1 233	-7%
Advertisement	967	1 048	-8%
Services	182	185	-2%
Домены и hosting	741	435	70%
Television	422	363	16%
Press	416	417	-0,2%
Business publications	174	165	5%
Salon-Press Publishing House	242	252	-4%
Operating expenses | 2 670 | 2 457 | 9%

Q1: Revenue + 21% from RuCenter takeover

The company's financial results in the first quarter of 2013

Million. rubles	Q1 2013	Q1 2012	Rev.
Revenue | 1 201 | 994 | 21%
Internet	489	533	-8%
Advertisement | 395 | 435 | -9%
Services | 94 | 98 | -4%
Domains and Hosting	383	119	222%
Television	150	153	-2%
Press	179	189	-5%
Business publications | 65 | 69 | -6%
ID "Salon-Press" | 115 | 120 | -4%
Operating expenses | 1 273 | 1 075 | 18%
EBITDA | -72 | -81 | 11%

2012

Fin results of the year: failure

RBC's reporting for 2012 can be called weak: the last quarter of the year historically makes the largest contribution to the company's financial performance, and the failure in this reporting period actually caused not the best results of the entire year. In general, the company continues to bring losses to shareholders.

RBC's revenue for 2012 grew by 21%, which is slightly lower than the earlier forecast of 25%. The gap between the forecast and actual EBITDA growth rate was more noticeable: 30% versus 7%. The company itself attributes this to a slowdown in advertising budgets in the 4th quarter, especially noting the negative impact of declining activity from car manufacturers and dealers. The same trends were noted by other players in different segments of the media market, such as Yandex, Mail.ru and STS, but they managed to overcome the market negative.

Accordingly, the dynamics of RBC's financial performance in the 4th quarter was weak: revenue grew by only 12%, and EBITDA fell by 16%. Let's consider the dynamics of revenue in the segment breakdown.

In January 2013, RBC CEO Sergei Lavrukhin commented on the reasons for the failures in the fourth quarter of^[9]":

"2012 was not as successful in terms of growth as 2011, when the growth on the Internet was 40-50%, and, most likely, in 2013 the market will not grow so quickly either due to the high base of past years. In addition, there was a story related to TNS and "Video International" in the fourth quarter of 2012. TNS changed the methodology for calculating GRP, and additional television equipment was unexpectedly thrown into the market. Back in early 2012, there was a full sell out on television budgets.

And all non-television media outlets planned to work with advertisers, assessing budgets based on this. And the fourth quarter in the media is the most interesting: in our case, it accounts for about 40% of advertising revenue. And suddenly, before the start of the quarter, one of the largest players in the market announces new rules and additional inventory on federal television channels.

Naturally, large advertisers primarily give their money there. As a result, we planned a certain cash flow, but failed to earn as much as we wanted. And I always want more.

According to preliminary data, the growth of RBC's Internet segment exceeded 30% in 2012, including through the purchase of RU-Center.

In fact, the positive dynamics in revenue for the year was achieved due to three areas: Internet services, television and hosting services, moreover, in the last direction - due to the effect of the consolidation of Ru-Center's results. The dynamics of revenue for the year for print publications was expected to be weak, although for the 4th quarter the results were very good. As noted above, the dynamics of online advertising revenue turned out to be disappointing. However, as a positive point, it should be noted that with the acquisition of Ru-Center, the company has seriously diversified its business, and now RBC should build its assets in a clearer structure and work to bring them to a positive EBITDA margin. RBC sets this as its goal for 2013, in which it is also going to achieve a break-even point.

Fin results of the 1st half of the year

The company's revenue in the first half of 2012

Million. rub.	1st half of 2012	1st half of 2011	Rev.
Internet	1 730	1 264	37%
Advertisement | 1 054 | 904 | 17%
Services | 676 | 360 | 88%
of them RU-CENTER | 176	—	—
Television	363	256	42%
Press	417	439	-5%
Business publications | 165 | 173 | -5%
ID "Salon-Press" | 252 | 266 | -5%
Total revenue | 2 510 | 1 959 | 28%

Q2 Revenue + 36 %

RBC's total revenue increased by 36% in the second quarter of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011 and reached 1,503 million. rubles Revenue growth is driven by the high level of advertising sales on RBC and RBC-TV business Internet resources, and is also associated with the strengthening of the direction of Internet services both through the acquisition of RU-CENTER and organic growth. The indicator EBITDA in the second quarter amounted to 80 million rubles.

Q1 Revenue + 18 %

For the 1st quarter of 2012, the total revenue of the holding increased by 18% compared to the same period of 2011, to 1007 million rubles. According to Troika Dialog experts, the largest growth was shown by revenues from television advertising, the volume of which increased by 34%, to 153 million rubles.

Revenues in the Internet segment increased by 28%, to 673 million rubles, against the background of an increase in revenues from online advertising (by 26% in annual terms, to 435 million rubles) and the provision of Internet services (by 33%, to 238 million rubles).

The positive dynamics of revenue in the television and Internet segment was nevertheless offset by a decrease in revenue in the print media segment: business publication revenues decreased by 20%, Salon publishing house revenue - by 12%, and total revenues in the print segment decreased in the 1st quarter of 2012 to RUB 181 million compared to RUB 214 million a year earlier.

EBITDA was negative at RUR -118 million compared to RUR -88 million in Q1 2011. The Company attributes the decline to seasonality factors.

According to the holding's forecasts, in 2012 its revenue will increase by 30%, and EBITDA - by 50%. This forecast was made taking into account the results of the Ru-Center domain registrar and excluding the Salon ID, starting from the second half of 2012. It is expected that the holding will sell its stake in the Salon publishing house. The cost of the entire publishing house is estimated at $25 million, so for its 80% RBC can receive $20 million (0.6 billion rubles).

Although the company showed a satisfactory growth rate, the fact that the holding's EBITDA never turned positive somewhat disappointed analysts. If we assume that RBC will be able to achieve the declared growth rates, the company's shares are quoted at about 14.5 according to the ratio "enterprise value/EBITDA 2012," which, according to experts, is not cheap at all, especially considering that the realism of the company's forecasts is in question.

2011

Financial results of the year: Revenue 4.6 billion (+ 35 %)

Key financial and operating results for 2011:

• RBC's revenue increased by 35% in 2011 to RUB 4,684 million;
• RBC's revenue from advertising sales again began to grow significantly faster than the market, in particular, revenue from the sale of online advertising increased by 67% in 2011, while the online media advertising market - by 45%;
• EBITDA increased more than 6 times in 2011 to RUB 524 million;
• RBC's online audience increased by 70% in 2011 to 88.7 million users;
• RBC TV's rating reached a record level of 18.2 million viewers, an increase of 13% over the year, including thanks to a large-scale program to modernize the channel in 2011;

RBC's print media grew by 9% in 2011 to RUB 973 million. The main contribution to the growth of the press segment was made by RBC business publications, which showed an increase in revenue by 31%. An important factor in the growth of advertising revenue was the increase in the number of advertising strips, as well as the rise in prices for advertising in the newspaper and RBC magazine by 10% in the 4th quarter of 2010 and an average of 10% to 16.5% in October 2011. Due to economic instability in Europe, where key advertisers of the Salon-Press publishing house operate, RBC interior magazines showed a slight decrease in revenue in 2011.

Salon-Press and the hosting company are profitable projects with good margins for their industries. AIR magazine "Ideas of Your House," aimed at a wide audience, amounted to 1,938,5 thousand people, and the number of readers of the premium segment magazine - "Salon-interior" - 552.1 thousand people in Russia^[10]

RBC Daily

The newspaper RBC newspaper (formerly RBC Daily) in 2011 grew by 45% (while remaining unprofitable), while the market grew by 7-8%.

RBC Magazine

The average audience of one issue of RBC's monthly business magazine in Russia was 1,023,5 thousand people. According to this indicator, the publication ranks second in the market. In Moscow, RBC is the most popular business magazine with AIR 327.9 thousand people.

RBC-TV

The growth in advertising revenues on RBC-TV amounted to 24% (loss at the end of the year), while the television market added 18%. Herman Kaplun (April 2012^[10]

Internet assets

Herman Kaplun (April 2012): For online media advertising, growth rates for 2011 were 67% versus 45% for the market. The company's most profitable business at the moment is the site rbc.ru. It generates about the same EBITDA as the entire holding. This is the most visited and business, and at the same time news site in Runet. I do not consider news aggregators - we do not perceive them as competitors. And he gets a premium price for his audience.

After the 2008-09 crisis, RBC's share in the banner advertising market declined sharply:

On December 14, 2011, Alfa-Bank^[6]: "Taking into account the results for the 3rd quarter of 2011 and 9 months of 2011, we significantly reduced our forecasts for EBITDA profitability for 2011 and beyond. RBC initially forecast EBITDA of RUB 500 million in 2011, but now, taking into account the still negative EBITDA for the 9 months of 2011, this indicator seems to be unattainable. We also revised our forecast to restore our EBITDA margin in the future, which also led to a significant reduction in our net income forecast for RBC.

We also took into account in our forecasts a new issue of 51.1 million new shares, which, according to the company's statement, should occur no earlier than spring 2012. In general, we expect a minimal erosion effect on the free float, since the main shareholder of RBC (51%) Onexim group originally planned to use its pre-emptive buyback rights for the purchase of new shares.

The company trades at 50% discounts to the sector's EV/ 2011-2013P sales average, offering a slightly higher CAGR in 2011-2013P revenue growth. RBC's EBITDA margin remains below the sector average by about 25 pp, although the company offers the potential for high EBITDA growth amid a recovery in profitability and revenue growth. We believe that favorable fundamental factors will allow the company to achieve revenue growth consistent with analogues in the Russian advertising market. At the same time, the company can be considered an attractive and cheap option for investing in the Russian Internet space in terms of the ability to make money on growth from the restoration of profitability.

We consider RBC's main risks to be growing competition with other Internet and media sources for the Russian business audience and over $200 million of restructured debt, the first payment of which comes in 2015P. "

"As of December 2011, RBC's debt to creditors decreased to $180 million. The representative of creditors is on the board of directors, participates in its work. At the same time, there have historically been a large number of covenants in the agreement with creditors (restrictions on the actions of the debtor by creditors - approx. ed.), in which RBC holding cannot independently make decisions without receiving consent from creditors to the transaction. This is the sale and purchase of assets, additional issue, and so on. When we realized that we had to buy RU-Center, we came to the creditors and began to negotiate. The holding has a development strategy for the next five years. Unfortunately, those covenants that have existed since the deal was passed two years ago limited the company's growth opportunities. If the company does not develop, it will be difficult for it to fulfill its obligations. Creditors said: we agree, we believe, the terms of the loan agreement have been revised (almost 90% of creditors voted to cancel the covenants), RBC's hands are untied. We got a sip of freedom and an opportunity to develop further. There are no problems with servicing RBC debt, we calmly pay it without delay. ONEXIM is a serious partner, this to some extent calms the market "(December 20, 2011, executive director of the Onexim group Sergey Lavrukhin^[11]").

Fin 9-month results: EBITDA disappointed

According to Q3 2011 and Q9 2011 financial results, there were no surprises in terms of revenue growth, but EBITDA disappointed Troika Dialog experts.

The company's revenue for the 9 months of 2011 increased by 32.2% compared to the 9 months of 2010, which means that the company will be able to fulfill its own revenue growth forecast for the entire 2011 not lower than 30% of^[11]. For 9 months of 2011, the company's revenue amounted to 2,960 million rubles. ($103 million). Segments Internet and TV showed the highest growth rates, but in the online advertising segment there was a significant slowdown in annual growth: from 62% in the 1st half of 2011 to 36% in the 3rd quarter of 2011.

The company's EBITDA for 9 months of 2011 remained in the negative zone (minus 97 million rubles) with negative EBITDA of 132 million rubles for 9 months of 2010. Nevertheless, the company said, which, according to the results of the whole of 2011, plans to reach a plus in terms of EBITDA, and 2011 EBITDA margin should be higher, In 2010, the Company's EBITDA amounted to RUB 85 million and EBITDA margin was 5.5%. During the conference call, the company attributed the negative EBITDA for the 9 months of 2011 to the fact that commercial expenses are scattered throughout the quarters, while in 2010 most of them fell in the 4th quarter of 2010.

Troika Dialog analysts are still cautious about the company, despite its satisfactory results in terms of revenue. A slowdown in the advertising market will delay RBC's recovery, as the company will be forced to cut investment and costs again. This will be problematic, since significant investments in the TV and print segment are needed for further development. In addition, the company must complete the acquisition of the domain name registrar Ru-Center. This deal cannot be abandoned, it should be completed in early 2012. The company intends to finance this acquisition either by selling non-core assets or by raising a loan.

As for the estimate, with a forecast EBITDA of $33 million, the "enterprise value/EBITDA 2012o" coefficient is 8.5. According to experts, this level cannot be considered a clear reference point for purchase, especially in the current conditions, since the coefficient implies a premium of 138% to STS Media, which has significantly higher balance sheets (zero debt and positive free cash flows), and a discount of 23% to Yandex, which also has better balance sheets and the whole business is concentrated in the Internet segment.

1H: 34% revenue growth

The company's revenue for the 1 half of 2011 reached 1959 million rubles, or $68.6 million, which is 34% higher than a year ago. The company confirmed its forecast for a 30% increase in revenue for the year, which coincides with the forecasts of Troika Dialog specialists. RBC also confirmed its forecast EBITDA for 2011 at 500 million rubles.

RBC's revenue under IFRS in the first half of 2011 increased by 35% to $70 million. Net profit amounted to $32 million against a loss of $60 million a year earlier.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC Sergey Lavrukhin regarding the financial condition of the RBC holding:

There is a great demand for advertising on the holding's Internet resources. In this sector, revenue on them increased by 75% compared to 2010. RBC's total revenue is more than 30% higher than in the second quarter of 2010. The same growth rates were observed for other financial indicators of RBC^[12]general, the largest banking analysts give the holding a positive assessment, especially against the background of crisis in the financial market.

Q2: 36% revenue growth

In the second quarter of 2011, RBC's total revenue increased by 36% compared to the same period in 2010 and reached 1,106 million. rubles RBC's revenue growth is associated with high demand for advertising on RBC's Internet resources, and also reflects an increase in prices for advertising on RBC's media resources amid high ratings of the company amid the continuing growth of the Russian advertising market.

EBITDA in the second quarter amounted to 107 million rubles due to the company's outstripping revenue growth compared to expenses. According to the results of the first half of the year, RBC went to profit at the level of EBITDA. Read more about the results of the second quarter and the first half of 2011 here.

2009: Loss on EBITDA for 9 months RUB 224 mln

In January-June 2009, RBC's revenue amounted to 1.41 billion rubles. (In June, RBC management predicted 1.398 billion rubles.), And loss on EBITDA 224.77 million rubles. (forecast - 62 million rubles. Loss).

OJSC RBC Information Systems expects in 2009 a decrease in revenue to 3.9 billion rubles against 5.3 billion rubles in 2008. This was announced on October 22 at the UBS conference by the chairman of the board of directors of the company Herman Kaplun.

According to him, one of the problems of the company's current business is a non-restructured debt of $230 million. Nevertheless, G. Kaplun said that RBC Information Systems has practically agreed on the restructuring of this debt with all creditors and hopes to complete these negotiations in the near future.

The short-term debt of the holding's parent company, RBC Information Systems, on loans and loans increased 16-fold from the beginning of 2008 to the end of March 2009 to RUB 3.2 billion. The company's accounts at the end of March had only 2.2 million rubles.

In the first quarter of 2009, the RBC manager recalled, advertising revenues decreased. But RBC reduced costs to the level that advertising revenues cover, he notes, and the sale of 98.2% of RBC Bank in April provided the holding with money for the whole summer. RBC raised 300 million rubles.

2008: Revenue of 5.3 billion rubles, EBITDA - 528.02 million

Revenue in 2008 - 5.3 billion rubles, EBITDA - 528.02 million rubles. The press accounts for 20-22% of RBC's income.

See also

• RBC History

Notes