RBC History

History

• Holding's Financial Performance History: RBC's Financial Performance
• History of the TV channel: RBC TV
• Newspaper history: RBC newspaper (formerly RBC Daily )

2022

Opening of the site for events

In the fall of 2022, RBC opened the Events Center and built a single content edition to create native advertising and special projects.

In 2021, RBC held 130 events, in fact, one every three days. According to the results of a difficult 2022, according to forecasts for November, the company planned to earn at events no less than last year.

The event center is a 2,000 square meter space that can be divided by soundproof walls into 3 separate zones. There are media and digital walls, large screens, serious sound equipment. Plus call areas and equipped places for comfortable work of video production and audio recording. The event center allows you to make both small events for 40-50 people and large-scale conferences with hundreds of participants.

The goal is to increase the share of events in RBC's total revenue to 15% by the end of 2025 and return the funds within 3 years from the launch of the Event Center. It is planned to reach a stable income from the very first months of the site.

Creation of a single edition of native advertising and special projects that generate 30% of revenue

As of November 2022, in the total revenue of RBC, the share of "media" remains at a level above 50%. In online projects, against the background of the conflict in Ukraine, stagnation occurs, but the RBC TV channel, on the contrary, shows positive dynamics. Just because of the general decline in budgets for media advertising in 2022, RBC was forced to concentrate on special projects and native content. These areas are growing much faster, and as of November 2022 they occupy about 30% of RBC's total revenue.

There are more than 2,000 customers in the company pool. In 2022, RBC changed its approach to working with native and special projects in general. Previously, the company had a set of separate sites. For example, Trends, RBC +, New Economy and many others. Customers came in to request each of them and discussed their project with different teams. From September 2022, all this is accumulated by a single content and commercial edition.

At the same time, from the point of view of communication, nothing changes for the customer. He still comes to the already familiar manager, but in response to the request he receives a comprehensive proposal covering all the possibilities of RBC. At the stage of implementation, a producer is connected to communication, who monitors the production of materials at each content vertical, keeps the client aware of what is happening and makes everything come out on time and exactly as it was intended.

The average check for a content or special project at RBC is 3-5 million rubles. The minimum cost is from 500 thousand. There are no general rules here: the cost always depends on the task and timing of implementation, including interviews with the customer speaker or video filming.

Reduction of 50 employees due to the crisis in the media market

In August 2022, it became known that dozens of employees were being cut at RBC, and salaries were being cut for some. One of the employees of the publication told Meduse about this (a media outlet acting as a foreign agent). Information about the cuts was confirmed by two more current and one former employee.

According to Meduza's interlocutors, in particular, the deputy editor-in-chief of RBC Ivan Makarov, media analyst Artem Kontarev and the head of the department were dismissed "Consumer market" Sergey Sobolev. Several employees of the Politics and Society department resigned of their own free will. In particular, this is a correspondent for the military-industrial complex Inna Sidorkova. She confirmed to Meduza that she had decided to leave RBC. At the same time, she did not bind their departure with financial reasons or editorial policies. According to another Meduza source in the editorial office, "a couple more people from the department" quit with her.

Since the beginning of 2022, the "Politics and Society" department at RBC has almost halved. Another correspondent is being cut in the department; in addition, they "decently cut the salaries of several correspondents," one of the newspaper's employees told Meduza. Earlier, the editorial office of its own free will left the judicial correspondent Margarita Alekhina. A new employee was not hired to replace her.

"They also reduced the bild editor, short newsman, employee of the" Calls "department (these are the department of news workers who are directly engaged in dialing speakers for comment). In general, victims in almost every department. In particular, the video group on the RBC website was halved, significant reductions in the department YouTube, in the department "Sport," - said an employee of RBC.

Speaking about salary cuts, the Medusa interlocutor said: "They are afraid that in the second half of the year advertising will collapse and there will be no income."

The head of the combined editorial office of RBC Petr Kanaev, in a conversation with Meduza, confirmed the fact of the cuts: "The optimization program at RBC as a whole in the holding affected about 50 employees, which is less than 5% of the staff. And in the divisions of the combined editorials - from industry departments to editorial analytics - are six. Each led his own direction and did it professionally. " According to Kanaev, optimization at RBC "is related to the state of the media market."

Hacking of the site after the start of the special operation of Russia in Ukraine

On February 28, 2022, the sites of RBC, Forbes, TASS, the newspapers Izvestia, Kommersant, as well as several other publications were hacked. On the main page of each of them there was a message from hackers calling for an end to the special operation in Ukraine. Read more here.

2021

Sale of Ru-Center Group LLC to Ru-Web Consortium. Investments "

Consortium of private investors LLC "Ru-Web. Investments, "the leader of which is Proxima Capital Group, acquired 100% of Ru-Center Group LLC (operating on the market under the Ru-Center, R01 Registrar and SpaceWeb brands) from RBC PJSC. This was announced on September 27, 2021 by TAdviser in Proxima Capital Group. The buyer was determined as part of a tender organized by Arovana Capital (formerly VTB Capital). The amount of the transaction was not disclosed. Read more here.

Ru-center sale plan. Buyer found

On August 31, 2021, it became known that the holding RBC was selling its Digital Infrastructure for Business segment, the basis of which is (Ru-Center hostingprovider Ru-center Group LLC). More. here

Refusal of permanent office work. Moving to coworking at Avtozavodskaya

Until 2020, the RBC team worked in a large office on several floors on Profsoyuznaya Street near the Kaluzhskaya metro station in Moscow. The editors produced news, filmed content for TV in television studios. The remote format was then practiced only in small teams of the IT department. The rest went to the office every day and did not think about the remote.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, RBC, like many others, transferred employees to remote work. What began as an anti-crisis solution for the safety of workers led to the transformation of the very approach to work and people. Forced work outside the office showed the effectiveness of the new experience, and six months later the company decided to keep the mostly remote format on an ongoing basis.

It became clear that the role of the office has changed - now it is needed as a place for meetings, brainstorms, events. It must also satisfy the important need in remote conditions for the unification and co-creation of employees, a sense of involvement. Therefore, in six months the company found a new space in the coworking format, which solves all these problems. With its opening for the media holding, the traditional concept of office finally leaves.

It has no fixed jobs - from trainee to CEO. But there are meeting rooms, lounge areas, places for holding events and organizing filming. To stop by to work in the office, employees book seats and conversations in the internal system.

Later, the focus shifted to other, equally important elements of human resources. Thus, the company began to actively invest in the development and well-being of employees. For example, they have unlimited access to free counseling by a psychologist. The VHI programme has been expanded so that specialist advice is available online at any time.

In April 2021, in response to the fact that colleagues began to communicate less with each other live, the project "People of RBC" was launched - it is designed to create a common environment for the exchange of experience and knowledge. As part of it, employees will learn new hard skills and soft skills, hold food meetings, lectures and workshops. Taking into account the new format for visiting the office, the project will help make communication better.

In 2020, it turned out to automate the bulk of business processes. The technical park was staffed, cloud services and video conferencing were purchased.

In 2020, RBC headed for the development of the IT block and technologies, so the company needs to remain an attractive employer in a very competitive market. The team now employs as many IT specialists as in the average startup. From the point of view of the HR brand, the ability to work from anywhere in the world and at the same time have a pleasant modern office is one of the key advantages.

In total, about 1.3 thousand people work in the RBC group of companies, including the domain and hosting business. Approximately 90% of employees began to work mainly remotely, and the office was used only for meetings.

Until complete automation has occurred, employees of departments working with documents - this is about 100 people - still have to go to the office.

When the company completely switched to remote work, many were unhappy. But over time, more and more employees note that they are gradually getting used to the new format and began to work no less efficiently than before. Many have more time to live outside of work - for family and friends, travel and hobbies. According to an internal survey, most RBC employees would like to stay remotely with the opportunity to visit the office a couple of times a week. This is the format the company has implemented.

The company has also expanded hiring opportunities. The location of the candidate no longer matters: RBC considers and hires people from different regions and countries. For example, the product manager of one of the company's key products, RBC Pro, constantly works from Europe, and leading designers from Bali. It was also possible to preserve internship programs for students and schoolchildren.

The company is working on the automation of personnel processes and plans to switch to an electronic document management system. RBC also begins updating technological solutions for TV: later, the channel will come to a flexible employment format.

2020

Site audience growth by 61% amid COVID-19 pandemic

2020 - the time of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, became the best year in the history of RBC. The number of unique visitors to the site increased by 61% and reached 56.7 million on average. The number of subscribers on YouTube has grown six times. Citation reached record values ​ ​ - the index was 32,519 according to the Medialogy.

RBC bought 25% of Scoring Technologies

On July 7, 2020, the RBC media holding announced the acquisition of 25% of Scoringa Technologies. Its private traders did not disclose the financial component of the transaction. Read more here.

Rosneft demanded 43 billion rubles from RBC

Rosneft demands through the court to recover 43 billion rubles from RBC. So the company assessed the damage to reputation from the title in one of the articles on the agency's website. As RBC was informed in May 2020, they received a statement of claim from Rosneft for a "record amount for the media market^[1].

The article in question claimed that the Ryazan private security company of the state-owned Roszarubezhneft became the owner of one of the largest former Venezuelan assets of Rosneft - the National Oil Consortium. RBC is convinced "of the reliability and objectivity of the published information based solely on official data."

The first version of the material was released under the heading "Ryazan private security company received a stake in the former Venezuelan project of Rosneft." The next day, the title was changed in connection with the receipt of Rosneft's clarifying comment to Roszarubezhneft, which received Rosneft's former Venezuelan asset through a private security company.

Rosneft claims that the original title of the article "contained distorted information about the contents of the transaction." "Instead of reflecting significant information that control over Venezuelan assets was obtained by the state-controlled Roszarubezhneft JSC, in fact, the defendant gives the impression of the transfer of assets to the company controlled by the plaintiff - PSC RN-Ohrana," the Ryazan lawsuit says. At the same time, the initial header of RBC did not indicate that this private security company belongs to or is related to Rosneft. Moreover, at the very beginning of the article it is said that this private security company belongs to Roszarubezhneft.

"The first version of the title is absolutely correct, it was changed not due to inaccuracy, but in order to reflect additional information from the company's comment on the technical role of the private security company in the transaction, which Rosneft was able to formulate only a day after the editorial request. Ryazan private security company, which is now part of the structure of Roszarubezhneft, received a former asset of Rosneft in Venezuela. This is a fact from the official disclosure. And the RBC headline reflected this fact, "said Petr Kanaev, head of the combined editorial office of RBC.

Rosneft believes that the headline questioned the fact of "alienating Venezuelan assets beyond the perimeter of the group," and the publication "created additional sanctions risks for the plaintiff, provoking an additional sanctions policy against him, despite the actual cessation of activities in Venezuela."

The amount of the claim in Rosneft was explained as follows: after the publication of RBC on May 14 at 17:16 Moscow time, quotes of Rosneft shares on the Moscow Exchange showed "worse dynamics" compared to the market. So, from 17:15 to the close of trading, the growth in the value of its shares amounted to 0.4%, while the MICEX industry index "Oil and" gas increased by 1.5%. Thus, the actual capitalization of Rosneft, which at the end of the trading session amounted to 3.679 trillion rubles, turned out to be 43 billion rubles. lower than if the quotes corresponded to the dynamics of this index, the company points out. "Until the publication of the article, the dynamics of the plaintiff's quotes corresponded to the average industry," says Rosneft.

"We are delighted with the assessment of RBC's influence on what is happening on the Russian and world markets and intend to continue to provide our audience with balanced information that helps make decisions in business," said RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog.

2019

Introduction of paid access to RBC Pro

Main article: RBC Pro

On December 16, 2019, access to publications in the RBC Pro section became paid. The cost of access was 800 rubles per month. Previously, these materials could be read freely by filling out only the registration form. Older readers will be able to continue reading materials for free one month after launching a subscription.

Petr Kanaev appointed head of the joint edition

On August 19, 2019, it was announced that Petr Kanaev was appointed to the post of head of the joint editorial office of the RBC media holding. Since 2017, he has served as First Deputy Co-Heads of the Joint Editorial Office. In his new position as head, he is responsible for the work of the rbc.ru website and the RBC newspaper.

Kanaev assured that RBC's editorial policy will not change.

Igor Trosnikov, who served as co-head of the joint edition, was appointed Deputy General Director of RBC Nikolai Molibog. He begins to oversee the processes of integrating RBC's content divisions, increasing their economic efficiency and transforming them in the context of the holding's overall development strategy.

Elizabeth Golikova, who served as co-head of the combined editorial office of RBC, will continue her professional activities outside the media holding, in a field not related to journalism.

Establishment of a credit rating agency

RBC media holding announced in January 2019 the establishment of the agency "National Credit Ratings" (NKR). It will be headed by the former head of the ACRA financial institutions ratings group Kirill Lukashuk.

2018: Freezing of shares of Mango Telecom by a Cypriot court at the suit of RBC

Russian media holding RosBusinessConsulting has secured the judicial arrest of shares in the holding company of the operator Mango Telecom, in which RBC owns a minority stake, Interfax reported on October 16, 2018. Read more here.

2017

Alexey Abakumov appointed Development Director

Alexey Abakumov, who in the spring of 2017 was called the candidate of the Kremlin to manage RBC, in July was appointed director of development of the holding.

Igor Poletaev replaces Elmar Murtazaev at the head of RBC TV

On July 7, 2017, it was announced that Igor Poletaev was replacing Elmar Murtazaev at the head of RBC TV. Read more here.

Total audience of RBC 25 million people per month

The total audience of RBC's media assets is 25 million people a month, the holding said in mid-June 2017, citing Mediascope data. Of these, 17 million people watch the RBC channel on average per month, 10 million people read the RBC website, 2 million people read the newspaper and magazine of the same name.

Grigory Berezkin bought a controlling stake in RBC

Grigory Berezkin bought a controlling stake in RBC media holding from Mikhail Prokhorov, the parties announced on June 16, 2017. ESN structures acquired a 65% stake in the media holding, representatives of Berezkin and Prokhorov refused to disclose the financial parameters of the transaction.

Observers considered this deal within the framework of the partnership of Grigory Berezkin with Yuri Kovalchuk. Earlier, the most likely buyer of the media holding, Gazeta.Ru sources called Yuri Kovalchuk the National Media Group.

Berezkin in an interview with Vedomosti said that he made an offer to stay with RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog and intends to make the same offer to the editorial team, which is managed by Elizabeth Golikova and Igor Trosnikov.

As of April 2017, the structures of the Onexim management company Mikhail Prokhorov owned 61.6% of the holding's shares, minority shareholders owned several percent of the shares (it turns out that Berezkin also bought them), the remaining 35% of the shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange.

Negotiations on the sale of RBC were delayed due to the large debt of the media holding, Vedomosti interlocutors know, at the end of 2016 it amounted to 14.9 billion rubles, about 85% of this amount is RBC's debt to Onexim. Prokhorov hoped to return most of this amount along with the sale of the company, two Vedomosti interlocutors know, which initially scared off some of the potential buyers.

The fact that Berezkin fundamentally agreed to buy RBC became known in April. According to the businessman himself, by this time the parties agreed on financial parameters and the last month bargained on the issues of responsibility of the parties. In particular, they argued who - the buyer or seller - would be financially responsible if Rosneft still managed to sue RBC for 3.2 billion rubles. for damage to business reputation. The state-owned company filed a lawsuit against RBC last spring, the court refused her compensation, in May Rosneft"" filed a cassation appeal against this decision. As a result, Berezkin took responsibility.

After the sale at RBC, part of the debt remains, Berezkin told Vedomosti, but did not disclose details. The holding remains part of the debt that is not related to Onexim, two Vedomosti interlocutors know, that is, about 2 billion rubles. The company is able to pay such an amount, they are sure. Taking into account the debt, Prokhorov received "several tens" of millions of dollars for the asset, a source close to the deal knows, according to another, this is more than $50 million. Prokhorov left RBC with huge losses, one of Vedomosti's interlocutors points out, the other objects: the businessman received more than he really expected, in such a difficult situation for him, this is the optimal amount.

Berezkin: While we are not planning to change anyone at RBC, the company is working well

On June 1, 2017, the owner of ESNGrigory Berezkin announced that he hoped for the imminent completion of the purchase of RBC and did not plan to make changes in the company yet.

"While we are not planning to change anyone at RBC, the company is working, in my opinion, not bad," he told reporters. "A minimum of changes is the best that can be," he told reporters on the sidelines of the PMEF-2017.

"Soon I hope (the deal will be completed - IF). There is nothing fundamental left, "added G. Berezkin

.

According to him, he is not going to combine RBC with his other media assets, but sees synergy.

He also stressed that he had not discussed the purchase of RBC with anyone in power.

Message about plans to meet Putin with Prokhorov

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with RBC owner Mikhail Prokhorov by May 28. This was announced on May 24, 2017, by the Dozhd TV channel.

According to him, the president himself spoke about the upcoming meeting on March 16 during a conversation with the chief editors of the Russian media.

A federal official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Putin is scheduled to meet with Prokhorov in the near future. At the same time, he could not say whether the meeting will take place before May 28.

At the meeting, as one of its participants told the TV channel, there were leaders, including Kommersant, Vedomosti, Nezavisimaya Gazeta and Novaya Gazeta. In addition, there, as the TV channel notes, were the general director of RBKNikolai Molibog and the co-head of the united editorial office of the Elizabeth Golikova.

According to the TV channel, Golikova was interested in Vladimir Putin's fate of the holding, but he evaded the answer, saying only that he would meet with the shareholder.

A Dozhd source close to ONEXIM's management said Prokhorov was going to discuss the terms of RBC's sale. According to him, the businessman needs guarantees that after the sale of the media business, he will be able to close other transactions on favorable terms.

According to a source close to the Kremlin, it is impossible to avoid a sale. At the same time, a federal official told the TV channel that the president was not going to talk about RBC, but "about business."

The TV channel notes that the meeting could be the first for Prokhorov since 2013. Then the businessman spoke at a meeting of the head of state with the leaders of parliamentary parties.

Onexim resumed negotiations on the sale of RBC

On April 11, 2017, it became known that Onexim of Mikhail Prokhorov resumed negotiations on the sale of the RBC media holding stopped in the summer of 2016. RNS was informed about this by an investment consultant familiar with the content of the negotiations, a source close to the media holding, and a media manager aware of the consultations.

Negotiations intensified in March, one of the sources said.

"Stage -

communicate, the deal is not closed," one of the sources said.

A source close to RBC added that at the moment there is due diligence of the asset, in which, in particular, investment consultants from VTB Capital participate, and the deal can be signed within a month.

The negotiation process involves a pool of investors, says one of the sources of RNS, without naming the applicants for the asset.

Two other sources, including those close to RBC, among possible buyers named the structures of the owner of the ESNGrigoria Berezkin group.

"A company

associated with Berezkin may become a buyer of RBC," says one of them.

According to a third RNS source, consultations with Berezkin about joining RBC's capital have been going on for more than a month, but "the topic of media holding debt at more than $200 million remains unsettled."

In the summer of 2016, two Vedomosti interlocutors specified that Prokhorov was ready to sell RBC for $250 million (including a debt of $200 million). One of Vedomosti's interlocutors knows that in the spring of 2017 Berezkin is going to buy RBC for an amount significantly less than $200 million.

"A fundamental

decision has been made, the deal has been approved at the very top," the Kommersant source said.

Two sources of Kommersant claim that Grigory Berezkin is ready to pay "about $100 million" for RBC. How the issue of RBC's debt will be resolved, they do not say. According to the holding's reports, as of June 30, 2016, its debt amounted to $277 million, including long-term - $225 million and short-term - $52 million. The capitalization of RBC OJSC on the Moscow Exchange on April 11, 2017 amounted to 2.47 billion rubles. (about $43 million).

The deal will amount to about $50 million, one of Vedomosti's sources said. He adds that the buyer will get a media holding cleared of debts.

One of Kommersant's sources says that the buyer is primarily interested in RBC as the most promising asset, from his point of view.

According to Vladimir Sungorkin, general director of Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House, Berezkin is very interested in the media business (he was previously the controlling shareholder of Komsomolskaya Pravda) and he is actively involved in managing his media.

According to two sources in the media market, if he enters the capital of RBC, Grigory Berezkin is considering the possibility of attracting Alexei Abakumov, deputy general director of the Rumedia group, to manage the media holding.

"Consultations are ongoing, there is no final decision on what status he can come to RBC yet," says^[2], one of the RNS sources].

Abakumov is a candidate of the presidential administration, said a Vedomosti source close to RBC, the administration recommended that RBC shareholders hire him in the summer of 2016. The presidential administration is closely monitoring the deal on RBC, according to two sources of Vedomosti. An employee of the presidential administration denies both this and the fact that officials somehow recommended Abakumov. Abakumov himself told Vedomosti that he was not negotiating work at RBC.

The court canceled compensation with RBC at the suit of Rosneft, but pleaded guilty

The Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal overturned on March 1 the decision to pay the media holding RBC and its journalists 390 thousand rubles. compensation at the suit of the company "" on the Rosneft protection of business reputation. The material must Igor Sechine be removed from the RBC website. The information contained in it was recognized by the court as defaming Rosneft's business reputation. RBC must publish a refutation within 10 days after the court decision, as well as report the refutation on its TV channel.

2016

Putin called the amount recovered from RBC at the suit of Rosneft insignificant

In December 2016, the President Russia Vladimir Putin commented on the outcome of the trial between RBC and Rosneft. According to him, he cannot judge the objectivity of the court decision, but considers the practice of filing claims by top managers of state-owned companies against the media logical^[3]

The head of state recently called the decision made by the court on Sechin's claim against RBC "normal," and the amount recovered from the media holding as a result was "insignificant."

"He went to court with RBC and wrapped 3 billion there, and the court, therefore, decided to pay him 300 thousand [in fact, 390 thousand rubles. - RBC]. Well, for RBC - an insignificant 300 thousand. I do not think that this will seriously affect the financial and economic activities of the holding itself, "the president said. "Nothing terrible happened there," he said on.​

RBC awarded Rosneft payment of 390 thousand rubles and refutation

On December 12, the Moscow Arbitration Court partially satisfied Rosneft's claim against RBC and four media holding journalists, filed after the publication of the article "Sechin asked the government to protect Rosneft from BP." The authors of the claim demanded to recover 3.179 billion rubles from RBC and the company's journalists, explaining the size of the claims by the fact that the information contained in the article denigrates Rosneft and undermines its business reputation.

At the same time, Rosneft lawyers referred to the value of the company's assets, which, in their opinion, exceeds 600 billion rubles. "We ask to recover only 0.49% of the value of the reputation," the lawyers said.

By its decision, the Moscow Arbitration Court eventually ordered RBC to pay Rosneft 390 thousand rubles. and additionally recovered from each of the four journalists (Lyudmila Podobedova, Timofey Dzyadko, Maxim Tovkailo and the leading RBC TV channel Konstantin Bochkarev) 4.5 thousand rubles each. By the same decision, the court decided to remove the article that became the subject of the lawsuit from the RBC website and give a refutation.

Rosneft files a lawsuit against RBC for 3 billion rubles

In September 2016, it became known that Rosneft"" asks to recover from RBC and three media holding journalists more than 3 billion rubles. for reputational harm caused by the publication of their article on the share BP in the privatization of a Russian company. A representative of Rosneft said this at a meeting in the Arbitration Court. Moscow

"We ask you to

recover in solidarity from the defendant 3.124 billion rubles as compensation for reputational harm," he said.

"The plaintiff today during the court session changed the requirements and asked to recover more than 3 billion rubles from RBC. During the meeting, Rosneft representatives did not provide official documents, they must provide them to the court and to us in the coming days. RBC lawyers will consider the documents, after which we will be ready to comment in more detail on the situation, "a representative of^[4] Vedomosti^[4]

.

In order for the court to recover a similar amount of losses, the plaintiff would have to give serious calculations proving the amount of losses and confirm them with accounting documents, says Fyodor Kravchenko, managing partner of the College of Media Lawyers. But it will be very difficult for the company to prove that it suffered losses only due to the publication, this is an almost impossible task.

Then you can go a simpler way, as Rosneft did: try to assess the intangible damage to business reputation, Kravchenko continues. In this case, the size of the claim is limited only by the plaintiff's fantasy. To assess the reputation, the plaintiff uses the services of a special appraisal company. But it is very difficult to assess it, in this case the plaintiff will also have to present some objective criteria, that is, again to prove that the damage to the reputation was caused by one article. Such situations are possible in the volatile securities market or b2c services, where one negative item can immediately lead to an outflow of deposits or customers. But the case with Rosneft is clearly different - it has a more stable business and its partners are unlikely to make decisions based on data taken from one publication.

In addition, in recent years, practice has come to the conclusion that legal entities should not recover such amounts for damage to reputation, the Supreme Arbitration Court (EAC) has repeatedly spoken on this topic. And from about 2005 to 2015, the courts practically did not satisfy such claims, the lawyer summarizes.

We are talking about the article "Sechin asked the government to protect Rosneft from BP," published in April 2016 by Timofey Dzyadko, Lyudmila Podobedova and Maxim Tovkailo. The authors claim that buyers of 19.5% of Rosneft shares subject to privatization will be obliged not to conclude a shareholder agreement with BP, which owns 19.75% of the state-owned company. The chief executive officer of the Russian state-owned company Igor Sechin, allegedly fearing that the new shareholder and BP would collect a block stake in Rosneft, insisted that at least two Asian companies or funds should buy the stake, the journalists wrote. Rosneft immediately called the article "false," saying that it "represents the unfounded fantasies of journalists or their so-called sources," and demanded a rebuttal.

"If Sechin wins against RBC (and he can, yes), then he will simply take the publication for himself," the well-known oppositionist, anti-corruption fighter Alexei Navalny commented on the information about the lawsuit.

Lawsuit against ex-general director of Ru-Center Panov for 20 million rubles

In September 2016, a subsidiary of RBC - the registrar of domain names Ru-Center - filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against the former general director of the company, Alexander Panov, to recover 20.26 million rubles from it.

The statement of claim states that in December 2012 Ru-Center signed a contract worth 20.26 million rubles. with the advertising agency "Jibb" for advertising on the site zaycev.net. According to Ru-Center, the contractor did not fulfill its obligations under the contract and did not have a contractual relationship with the portal zaycev.net. The plaintiff claims that neither the contractor nor third parties had the opportunity to advertise on the specified site, and the company itself did not need this agreement. In addition, the company "Jibb," which was liquidated, had the signs of a one-day company. The plaintiff insists that these circumstances are the basis for recovering losses from Panov. RBC confirmed the filing of the lawsuit and the essence of the claims.

Panov told RNS that he did not make decisions on the conclusion of an advertising contract, the contractor and the price of the contract was determined by RBC.

"Ru-Center

disputes the contract of 2012, the contractor and the cost of which was determined by the shareholders of Ru-Center, that is, RBC. All documentation under this agreement towards Ru-Center was provided by the RBC financial service, "Panov said. He noted that "he considers the filing of a lawsuit an attempt to put pressure on the victim in a criminal case^[5]

.

Onexim stopped negotiations on the sale of RBC

In May 2016, the Onexim group of businessman Mikhail Prokhorov suspended negotiations on the sale of the RBC media holding. They stopped looking for a new owner after leading media managers were fired from the company. The resignations in the holding were associated with pressure from the authorities due to RBC publications.

On the morning of June 1, 2017, RNS reported, citing sources in the Onexim group, that the sale was no longer part of management's plans.

"After all the events at RBC, negotiations on the sale are losing their relevance, at least now," the source said.

According to RNS, a price of more than $200 million was discussed with potential buyers. Sources announced a discrepancy in the valuation of the asset with a number of potential investors "at times"^[6].

Potential buyers, RNS sources claim, included:

• co-owner of NLMKVladimir Lisin,
• USM Holdings co-owner Alisher Usmanov, as well as
• structures affiliated with the "National Media Group."

In addition, organizations associated with the NSR Bank of Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, as well as the co-owner of the timber holding Ilim"" Zakhar Smushkin and the owner of the group, were named. UNIFIED SOCIAL TAX Grigory Berezkin The daughter of the latter, Anna Berezkina, is the general director of the Metro newspaper.

A source in the financial sector explained to reporters that "there really were no active negotiations, the process was limited to sending proposals to potential investors."

Later, the Russian Air Force Service, citing its source, also announced the suspension of negotiations on the sale. According to the interlocutor of the journalists, on May 13 it became clear that there would be no sale deal (it was on this day that almost the entire management of RBC was fired). At the same time, the source suggested that the lack of negotiations on the sale is unlikely to affect the editorial policy of the publication.

Despite the information of the Russian Air Force and RNS, the director of public relations of the Onexim group of companies Andrei Belyak told Ленте.ru that negotiations on the sale of the media holding were not conducted in the past and are not underway now.

US government agency requests funding for RBC for 2017

In May 2016, it became known that in the request of the American state agency BBG to the US Congress for funding for 2017, Russian media partners indicated: RBC, Echo of Moscow and Dozhd TV channel (see page 34).

Osetinskaya and several editors leave RBC

RBC editor-in-chief Elizabeth Osetinskaya, RBC website editor-in-chief Roman Badanin and RBC newspaper editor-in-chief Maxim Solyus have left the holding, the company itself said. The last working day of all three is May 13, 2016.

Irina Malkova will temporarily manage the joint editorial office, now - Badanin's deputy. Formally, she will not be appointed to the post of acting chief editor, said RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog. Malkova wrote on Facebook that she will soon leave RBC and "works approximately until June 30." The editor-in-chief of RBC magazine Valery Igumenov also wrote on Facebook that he remained in his post at RBC "for a short time."

Solus later wrote on Facebook that he would not disclose specific reasons for his departure. But he is deeply convinced that his dismissal is due to the editorial policy of RBC and the fact that due to this editorial policy, the owner of the holding Mikhail Prokhorov had problems.

"This policy and, in particular, my tenure as editor-in-chief of the RBC newspaper, reduce the chances of a successful outcome of the" dispute of economic entities "for the entire business of Prokhorov," Solyus said.

The change of RBC editors was the decision of the management of the RBC holding, RBC CEO Nikolai Molibog confirmed to Vedomosti. He declined any other comment on the matter.

"Recently, we talked a lot about how to further develop RBC, and in these conversations we could not come to a consensus on important issues, so we decided to part. I want to thank Elizabeth, Roman and Maxim for their work and for their contribution to the development of the company, "RBC said in an official statement on his behalf

.

According to a Vedomosti source in RBC, at first it was decided to leave Solyus, Osetinskaya and Badanin left solidarity with him. "New appointments in the structure of RBC's media projects will be announced later," the company said.

In addition, several editors of the holding leave, including Yulia Yarosh and Petr Mironenko. Both said on their Facebook that they work for the company until June 30. "I remain for a transition period to transfer cases," Yarosh wrote. A similar message was made by the editor of RBC's Technology and Media department Polina Rusyaeva-Tsybizova, deputy editor-in-chief of RBC magazine Alexei Yablokov, deputy editor-in-chief for special projects Elena Myazina and RBC special correspondent Svetlana Reuters. The fact that they work at RBC until June 30 was announced by Elena Tofanyuk, head of Banks and Finance, and Anfisa Voronina, deputy editor-in-chief of RBC magazine.

The previous few months, pressure on RBC increased. As sources in the holding told Vedomosti, employees of the presidential and government administrations sought a change in editorial policy from the company's management and its shareholder Mikhail Prokhorov. First of all, officials were not satisfied with RBC's investigations about people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Two interlocutors close to RBC say that it was Solyus who was the first to resign, since officials were used to reading a paper newspaper, and not the RBC website, where the materials appeared initially.

Later, on May 18, 2017, Elizabeth Osetinskaya told The Financial Times that the dismissal of RBC's management was directly related to the publication of articles about the Panama dossier. At the same time, RBC did not directly participate in the preparation of the Panama dossier. The publication published articles about this on the site, and also published a text on the first page of the newspaper and accompanied it with a photo of Putin.

Criminal case on the deprivation of Panov and Karetsky shares in one of the RBC companies

On April 29, 2016, the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow opened a criminal case under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale, sanction - imprisonment of up to 10 years) at the request of the former shareholder of Bayt-Telecom (managed the data processing center, controlled by RBC) Alexander Panov about the deprivation of his and Yaroslav Karetsky 25% of the company's shares. This is stated in the notice in the criminal case. The decision to initiate a criminal case states that the value of 25% of BT shares was $13.4 million.

According to Panov, who is familiar with the documents of the investigation, in the circle of persons, which law enforcement agencies will check for involvement in the crime, the general director of RBC Nikolai Molibog is included, his first deputy Ekaterina Kruglova, financial director of RBC Igor Selivanov, RBC Deputy Director General for Technology Alexander Kononenko, former BT CEO Farida Karimova, Head of the RBC Security Service Alexander Zhgut, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC Derk Sauer and General Director of Reconne LLC Andrei Gordeev. According to Panov, BT's assets at the time of the start of the investigation belong to the telecom operator Reconne, and the circle of persons whose possible involvement will be checked was indicated in his statement.

The Prosecutor General's Office handed over the materials on the case to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, follows from the response of the supervisory authority to Alexander Panov. The Prosecutor General's Office found that from 2009 to September 2014, Panov and Karetsky each owned 12.5% of the shares of BT CJSC, the remaining 75% belonged to the offshore Karuta Investments. RNS has at its disposal a document signed by Molibog, according to which 75% of Bayt Telecom as of September 23, 2014 belonged to RBC through offshore companies Karuta Investments, Gattico Holding, Halvertson Holdings and Pintolexa Holdings. The director of Karuta was Derk Sauer, Panov specified.

On August 29, 2014, Farida Karimova, allegedly acting as the sole shareholder of BT, signed and transferred for registration to the bodies of the Federal Tax Service of Russia in Moscow the decision to reorganize BT CJSC into InvestProekt LLC, dismiss Igor Selivanov, General Director of BT and appoint himself to this position, as well as the transfer of property from Byte-Telecom CJSC to InvestProekt LLC, the document says. Then InvestProekt was annexed to Drok LLC, registered in the Republic of Tatarstan, "at the place of mass registration of legal entities and not carrying out actual activities," the Prosecutor General's Office established.

"In this regard, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, in accordance with Article 37 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, materials of verification on the facts of fraudulent actions in relation to property belonging to you (Panov. - RNS) and Y. V. Karetsky, as well as the illegal formation (reorganization) of a legal entity, were sent to the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, "the document says

.

Panov claims that Karimova liquidated several legal entities that were previously members of RBC.

Pressure on Prokhorov to sell RBC

In April 2016, a source in the power structures told Gazeta.Ru that the order to change the owner of RBC was given at the highest level. And now it is important for all "puzzled" officials "to quickly fulfill this order."

According to two senior officials and a source close to the Kremlin, RBC's editorial policy has long been dissatisfied at the top. The greatest reaction was caused by publications dedicated to the family of the head of state: the director of the Innopraktika Foundation Katerina Tikhonova, whom Reuters sources called "Putin's daughter" (the presidential spokesman denied this data), and the entrepreneur Kirill Shamalov, who, according to Reuters, is the son-in-law of the head of state. One of the sources says that a photo of Vladimir Putin to an article about Panamanian offshore companies published in the RBC newspaper also caused an extremely negative reaction.

According to two sources close to the leadership of RBC, the "RBC case" is supervised by the head of the newly created Rosgvardia Viktor Zolotov, who is considered a close ally of Vladimir Putin, Meduza reported.

The interlocutor in the power structures emphasizes that the owner of RBC Mikhail Prokhorov and his entourage are "really scared, because they have a clear understanding that they were angry with the first person of the country."

A source familiar with the situation and the interlocutor of Gazeta.Ru on the market assure that Prokhorov is not against the sale of RBC, but broke too high a price. And everything that happens around the oligarch's business is attempts to bring down the price, including RBC.

For example, the interlocutor says, on April 22, 2016, the pro-government resource Ruposters published a screenshot of an article from the RBC website entitled "Privatization is under threat: why the authorities are in no hurry to sell assets." The screenshot captures a comment by an editor who asks the authors to find an expert who would say that "the conditions set by Putin immediately greatly narrowed the circle of potential buyers and why." The publication of Ruposters was widely distributed on social networks. The official representative of the holding, Yegor Timofeev, wrote on Facebook on Saturday that "there were several editorial questions in the draft<...>, but Ruposters decided to focus on the expert's comments." Why look for an ideological background in ordinary economic material is not clear, Timofeev emphasized.

Prokhorov acquired a 51.1% stake in RBC media holding in 2010 for $80 million during an additional issue (about 2.56 billion rubles at the exchange rate of that time). Now the capitalization of the entire media holding is estimated at 2.04 billion rubles. (trading data on the stock exchange). Thus, this asset also lost in price.

A source close to RBC and ONEXIM told Gazeta.Ru that as of April 2016, the holding's debt is about $220 million. At the beginning of spring 2016, according to him, RBC was close to an agreement with the majority of holders of credit notes on the conversion of debt into equity.

"Such a conversion will lead to a complete recovery of the company. According to preliminary calculations, after the conversion, ONEXIM will retain a controlling stake in RBC, "says the source of Gazeta.Ru. By the end of April, he promises, the company will publish results for 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, "they will reflect that the holding's operating EBITDA in 2015 will grow to 400-500 million rubles. and that the holding in 2015 for the first time in several years was not financed from shareholder funds or from the sale of assets. In the first quarter of 2016, the holding - perhaps for the first time in its history - will show positive EBITDA. " A Gazeta.Ru source emphasizes that ONEXIM is doing all this for the next result. "A profitable holding in current operations and almost completely exempt from debt. And what ONEXIM is going to do next with the "cleared" holding is a mystery to me, and this has little to do with politics. Only business, "says the interlocutor of Gazeta.Ru.

Sources surrounded by Mikhail Prokhorov told Meduza that the businessman has been negotiating the sale of RBC for more than a year. At first, Prokhorov allegedly talked about this with Grigory Berezkin. After Berezkin failed to buy the Russian version of Forbes, he, according to some reports, became interested in RBC and turned to Prokhorov. At the same time, Berezkin insisted on repaying Prokhorov's debt, which he assumed when buying the holding seven years ago; Prokhorov did not agree with this.

Another Meduza source from Prokhorov's entourage says that Zakhar Smushkin, co-owner of the Ilim timber industry group, was a potential buyer of RBC. According to the source, Smushkin's managers in February 2016 were already discussing possible appointments in the holding after the change of ownership.

Both alleged buyers are united, firstly, by a long-standing acquaintance with each other, and secondly, by friendship with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev - he worked as a lawyer for Smushkin in the 1990s. The interlocutor of Meduza, close to the leadership of the economic department of the FSB, confirms: the head of the Russian government Dmitry Medvedev was interested in Prokhorov's deal with Smushkin.

In an interview with Meduza, one of the influential Russian media top managers notes that Smushkin and Prokhorov failed to agree on a price. Prokhorov invested about $80 million in RBC, and also took on $220 million in debts left over from the previous owners. In addition, according to people from Prokhorov's entourage, RBC holding by 2016 "increased its political weight," which should also be taken into account in the price of the asset. At the same time, according to the interlocutor of Meduza in the media industry, the market value of RBC is now no more than $60 million, and Smushkin was hardly ready to offer significantly more than this amount (what price he insisted on is unknown). Be that as it may, the negotiations, according to Meduza, stopped after the appearance of investigators in companies owned by Mikhail Prokhorov.

At the same time, the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, Alexei Venediktov, said on Twitter that RBC was "bought by Alexander Mamut," the owner of Rambler & Co.

According to Meduza sources in the ONEXIM group, the FSB and Prokhorov's entourage, the president personally authorized searches of the entrepreneur's companies. Russia Vladimir Putin was outraged by the publication's publications dedicated to his family. A source in the leadership of ONEXIM notes that the Kremlin's claims to RBC "grew like a snowball," especially in recent months. Back in 2015, the country's leadership did not like some of RBC's publications - in particular, the investigation into Putin's alleged daughter Katerina Tikhonova, as well as the text about the business of Putin's alleged son-in-law Kirill Shamalov. And especially in the Kremlin were annoyed with how actively RBC in 2016 covered the publication of the Panama Archives.

The most likely buyer of the media holding, Gazeta.Ru sources called the National Media Group Yuri Kovalchuk.

"Last time, when such an attempt was made (to achieve the sale of RBC. - "Gazeta.Ru"), Derk Sauer, president of RBC, was transferred to the ONEXIM group, and the deal itself fell through. Now Elizabeth Osetinskaya is leave for a long academic leave, and earlier than the planned time, on which the entire holding policy rests (Osetinskaya in early April announced a trip to study at Stanford University in September 2016; however, this week RBC reported that Osetinskaya is taking academic leave in May. - "Gazeta.Ru"). This circumstance, as well as recently shown television stories and searches in Prokhorov's structures, is nothing more than indirect signs of the impending sale of RBC, "said political analyst Leonid Davydov. "Dissatisfaction with the editorial policy of the holding has only grown recently."

"Prokhorov

now does not get in touch with almost anyone. This happened to him only once when he was "grabbed" in Courchevel and threatened with prison, - says the interlocutor surrounded by the oligarch. "But in general, Prokhorov once said that if the question arises about the sale of RBC, then he will not resist."

The Kremlin has repeatedly stated that there is no pressure on the holding by the authorities. Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov said that Putin did not meet with the owner of the Onexim group, which includes RBC, Mikhail Prokhorov, and denied press reports that the Kremlin allegedly recommended changing the owners of RBC.

Sale of Relax.ru and Kupongid.ru, closing of Tvidi.ru

In 2016, RBC got rid of the site Relax.ru. Its new owner was the Belarusian company Artox. The coupon distribution site has left the holding Kupongid.ru. In the same year, the site for children was closed Tvidi.ru.

2015

Dmitry Razumov replaces Derk Sauer at the head of the board of directors

In December 2015, it became known that Dmitry Razumov became the chairman of the board of directors of RBC. Derk Sauer was chosen as Razumov's deputy.

Trademarks and business remain in RBC, RBC Online is a content production contractor

In September 2015, it became known that RBC Holding allocated all its media assets to a separate company RBC Online LLC. RBC Online was completely acquired by Businessinform - the Federal Antimonopoly Service approved this deal in July 2015. In turn, the sole owner of Businessinform is Mikhail Prokhorov - thus, the holding complied with the requirements of the law on limiting foreign share in Russian media 20%.

Previously, most of the holding belonged to the Onexim group of Prokhorov through Cyprus offshore. It turns out that if until now Prokhorov through the holding controlled 57.05% of the founders of the media under the RBC brand, now 80.46%, and taking into account the share in the holding itself - almost completely.

According to RBC representative Zlata Nikolaeva, by the beginning of 2016, employees of all editorial offices of the holding were transferred to work at RBC online. At the same time, RBC holding will remain the owner of media brands, continue to sell advertising in them and distribute them. That is, all commercial activities affecting the financial results of RBC will remain in the holding, she stressed. RBC Online will actually act as a content production contractor.

Charge of advancing UK policy

In August 2015, according to the financial statements of the British BBC TV channel for 2013-2014, which Izvestia got acquainted with, the Air Force cooperates with the RBC TV channel. During this period, the British company gained a fairly wide audience with the help of non-English television services around the world, including Russian ones.

According to the BBC report, "Russian television broadcasting and two partner channels - Dozhd and RBC - function well and reach an audience of 3.2 million viewers weekly." In turn, "BBC Russia TV is highly appreciated by its audience for the fact that the stories are relevant and reliable and remain impartial and objective."

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of RBC-TV Alexei Zuichenko did not talk about the details of the relationship with the BBC, since these are "commercial conditions."

"We

order some materials from them or just try to find out the British point of view on some issue, observers turn on for a few minutes and set it out," Zuichenko said.

A source close to the leadership of RBC said that the channel does not receive money from the BBC for posting British content^[7].

- This is a means of "free" filling out the air: BBC journalists have a very good level of training, they are ready to talk about different topics quite sane and at the same time they do not take money at all for acting on our air. Since the RBC TV channel is not the richest, it is profitable - we get a high-quality on-air product without spending a penny of money. We do not even pay for satellite, signal transmission, studio, equipment, etc. That is, there is no financial relationship. For them, this is beneficial in terms of image - the fact that they represent their opinion around the world, - says the interlocutor.

The press service of the BBC World Service noted that the company cooperates with media partners from all over the world, including Dozhd shopping center and RBC.

- Partner stations produce our news programs, - said the press service. - In 2014, the BBC World Service funding model changed - the company used to receive grants from the British Foreign Office, but now it exists at the expense of a license fee (taxes of British citizens. - Izvestia).

Market participants doubt that Dozhd and RBC-TV work for free.

- Foreign companies receive money from the budget to finance such opposition projects. How they conduct them is another question, but I am sure that funding is coming, and not bad. Every year, governments USA and the UK spend hundreds Russia of millions to promote their ideology, says dollars one of the top managers of the federal television channel. "It's important to them. Almost the same as securing the information space in your homeland. It is not surprising that RT quite often there are problems in England due to the claims of the local regulator. These are all links of the same chain.

In a conversation with Izvestia, a source at RBC confirmed that BBC journalists often refuse to comment on topics that are unpleasant for them.

- This applies, for example, to scandals with filmed journalistic materials from the BBC, including pro-Russian content. When such conflicts arise, employees of a British company refuse to talk about it, which is disappointing. All this talk about their so-called free rules is complete nonsense, "the source added.

RBC's cooperation with the BBC continues, as can be seen on the program grid of TV channels. So, the host of the program "Today. The main thing "on RBC twice a week gets in touch with a columnist for the Russian BBC service in London and asks to assess certain recent events. For example, Kerry's visit to Russia, telephone conversations between Putin and British Prime Minister Cameron, an interview with BBC President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko.

The programme, titled "BBC on Rain," airs every day and is billed as "a purely English take on Russian events and reporting by BBC correspondents from around the world." These are news releases from the Rain studio, but with reports from BBC columnists. On August 10, 2015, for example, they discussed whether the Russians "want wars." The retired Russian general told the BBC that Russia could start a war with Ukraine if Kyiv goes on the offensive in Donbass. They also told how the British authorities are fighting illegal migrants and solving the problem of violent air passengers.

This is not the first time RBC has been accused in connection with the authorities of foreign countries. Izvestia in April reported on RBC-TV's plans to cooperate with Voice of America. The materials of the American government organization Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which unites Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Voice of America (VOA) and other US state media channels, say that the Russian broadcasting budget will grow from $4.09 million to $4.14 million.

Voice of America and RBC TV plan to expand the airtime of co-produced content to 60 minutes a week using [Voice of America] studios and journalistic resources in Washington and New York, "BBG said. Among the partners of "Voice of America" in the materials of BBG 2014 indicated the resource "Грани.ру" and the TV channel "Rain."

On August 14, 2015, opposite the editorial office of the Dozhd TV channel, a banner of the Glavplakat art community appeared depicting RBC and Dozhd TV channels, according to the authors, in view of the chain dogs of the British regime.

Board update

On June 26, 2015, following the meeting of shareholders, members of the board of directors were elected:

• 1. Derk Sower
• 2. Ekaterina Mikhailovna Salnikova
• 3. Alexander Mikhailovich Lyubimov
• 4. Molybog Nikolay Petrovich
• 5. Elena Olgerdovna Myasnikova
• 6. Sergey Podsypanin
• 7. Sharshova Natalia Valentinovna
• 8. Andrey Nikolaevich Kononov
• 9. Anastasia Andreevna Maksimova

In December 2015, Dmitry Razumov was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC. Derk Sauer became vice chairman of the company's board of directors.

ONEXIM pays RBC's debts

In April 2015, it became known that ONEXIM funds the payment of a coupon on bonds, since, despite the operating profit in 2014, RBC cannot service a large debt, which has become more expensive due to the fact that it is nominated in foreign currency, Mister Senko added.

As of June 30, 2014, the total long-term debt burden of the holding was $230 million, according to the reports for the first half of 2014. Most of the debt falls on ONEXIM structures, which accumulated the holding's obligations to creditors during the purchase and restructuring of RBC in 2010. On the day of the Board of Directors, April 24, 2015, RBC OJSC paid RUB 13.564 million to bondholders in connection with the onset of their maturity^[8].

In April 2015, RBC received from the shareholder 852 million rubles. to pay off debts on loans and bonds, 550 million rubles. of which were paid immediately. Another 349 million rubles. RBC must pay by March 31, 2016.

The group's total short-term loan liabilities at the beginning of 2015 more than doubled over the year to RUB 1.23 billion. As stated in the report for 2014, in the future RBC will pay off debt not only at the expense of the result of operating activities, but also by selling its assets.

As of May 25, 2015, the controlling stake in the group belongs to the structures of Mikhail Prokhorov (57.05%), the rest is in free circulation on the Moscow Exchange.

Transfer of assets to Russian jurisdiction

In April 2015, it became known that ONEXIM Mikhail Prokhorov began restructuring the RBC holding. Due to rising exchange rates, it can no longer service its debts, and must also be brought into line with a law prohibiting foreign companies from owning more than 20% in Russian media since 2016. Now a number of holding structures, including the business editorial office and part of the channel's assets, are being transferred from the public RBC OJSC to the new RBC Online LLC. ONEXIM will receive 80.5% in it, for which it will pay 851 million rubles, the money will go to the capital of RBC Online.

The company established RBC Online LLC, and the board of directors approved the transfer of a number of assets to it - 100% of BusinessPress LLC (publisher of the RBC business newspaper) and 1% of BusinessPress SPb (the St. Petersburg branch of RBC engaged in Internet projects). As follows from the message, 100% of BusinessPress is estimated at 7.98 million rubles, 1% of BusinessPress SPb is estimated at 0.87 million rubles.

The next stage will be the sale of 80.46% of RBC Online LLC to Businessinform LLC. According to the Kartoteka.ru, Businessinform LLC (until March 2015 - ONEXIM Sport LLC) is registered at ONEXIM and established by Timur Podsypanin. This is an employee of the group's legal department, explains a Kommersant source close to ONEXIM. To pay for the share, Businessinform will contribute 851 million rubles to the capital of RBC Online.

The second shareholder of RBC Online will remain RBC OJSC, the holding's parent company. In addition to the assets already transferred to RBC Online, it will contribute another 8.9 million rubles. money, as well as 100% of the shares of RBC-TV CJSC and 3% of the shares of RBC-TV Novosibirsk CJSC (owns the broadcast frequency, thanks to which RBC TV retains the right to sell advertising), which are estimated at 197.88 million rubles. RBC's share in RBC Online will be about 19.54%.

The transactions were approved by all members of the board of directors of RBC OJSC, except for Yuri Adamovichs, who abstained from voting on these issues. Mr. Adamovics is a former top manager of MDM Bank and is believed to represent the interests of the holding's creditors on the board of directors. He conveyed through the reception that he refused to comment to Kommersant.

In 2014, the holding's revenue fell by 12%, to 4.93 billion rubles. The decline, in particular, was demonstrated by the print media segment (by 22%, to 215 million rubles), the TV channel (by 2%, to 866 million rubles), the revenue of business Internet resources increased by 7%, to 1.587 billion rubles.

The restructuring is carried out to bring the holding structure in line with the new law "On Mass Media," Deputy General Director, Investment Director of ONEXIM Valery Senko told Kommersant. Adopted in 2014, the law prohibits foreign companies from owning more than 20% of the capital of Russian media since 2016. As of June 30, 2014, 63.39% of RBC belonged to the ONEXIM group through the Cypriot structures Pragla Ltd and Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Ltd.

Sale of the QIP.ru portal and its satellites

A team of players from the CPA network market bought the project from RBC in the spring of 2015 QIP.ru and all its main^[9] to^[10].

The deal included the QIP.ru website and all major satellites: the News.qip.ru news aggregator, the 5ballov.qip.ru educational database; entertainment services: a selection of tests and Aeterna.qip.ru surveys, Horo.qip.ru astrological information, a service for creating screenshots of the Shot.qip.ru user's screen, Borda.ru and Forum24.ru forum systems; free hosting QIP.ru and storage and data exchange space Files.qip.ru.

As part of the portal, a postal service was also sold QIP.ru.

As

part of the strategy to develop RBC's priority business projects, we sold another major entertainment resource, the portal QIP.ru. The buyer was a team that has been working in the CPA network market for several years and is interested in further developing the project by consolidating it with current assets and launching new products based on the QIP brand. One of the most important tasks for us at present is to ensure the most comfortable and technologically stable transfer of the project. We expect that the transition period will be short, since the QIP.ru team in full force has passed to the new owners. - General Director of Media Mir and Deputy General Director of RBC for Technologies Alexander Kononenko

Closing of RBK.Like Financials project

In January 2015, it became known that from February 1, the RBC Personal Finance project (lv.rbc.ru), launched in April 2010 by the team of Herman Kaplun, was closed.

2014

Sale of the service Smotri.com

In December 2014, it became known that RBC had agreed to sell video hosting to a Smotri.com group of private investors. This was announced to TASS by the general director of Mediamira (manages RBC's non-human projects) Alexander Kononenko. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Smotri.com is a free service for hosting, storing and watching video files. According to the site, the number of registered users reaches 9 million people. RBC has been negotiating the sale of the project since August 2013. Among the potential buyers was the state operator Rostelecom.

"Sale Smotri.com is another step in RBC's strategy of focusing on the development of business assets and the sale of entertainment. We are pleased that we are selling the project to investors who are interested in developing the project and fruitful work with the current team. For our part, we will help in the technological migration of the project to the new owner without deteriorating the quality of the service, "said^[8]

.

He added that the deal includes a team, brand, current developments, as well as server support, it should be closed in the next few days.

Purchase of Public.ru for 19.2 million rubles

In December 2014, it became known that the RBC media holding acquired 60% of the online library Public.ru for 19.2 million rubles^[8].

It was announced that the remaining 40% of the shares will be redeemed in the first half of 2017 at a price of €200 thousand. The amount of the transaction agreed in euros for the redemption of a 40% stake in the Public.ru will be transferred to rubles at the rate that will be relevant at the time of closing the transaction.

Public.ru is owned by Public Library CJSC, owned by Vector-Info LLC, Avikomp Services CJSC, ONTOS AG.

Refusal to sell the site Loveplanet

On October 1, 2014, it became known that RBC would not sell dating site Loveplanet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC Derk Sauer told TASS.

"We are not selling Loveplanet. The asset is profitable - it makes no sense, "he said

.

In June 2014, TASS sources reported that shareholders of the TopFace dating site are interested in buying Loveplanet. TopFace is trying to assess whether it is possible to strengthen its website and mobile direction at the expense of Loveplanet, they said.

Loveplanet is 76% owned by RBC, the rest is owned by offshore Lintor Ltd. The portal was estimated at $10-12 million. According to TNS, in April 2014, the audience of the Loveplanet website was about 237,700 people per day, or 0.2% of the Russian population (2 million people per month, or 1.9% of the population). The average number of page views per person was 15.5 units per day^[11].

RBC Website Audience

As of November 2014, the company also controlled the sites:

• photofile.ru (in 2016 redirection to photo.qip.ru)
• ziza.ru (for 2017, the site is closed)
• turist.ru (in 2016, redirection to RBC Style was made)
• creep.ru (for 2017 the site was closed).

LovePlanet sale talks

In June 2014, it became known that the shareholders of the TopFace dating site are negotiating with RBC to buy the competing portal Loveplanet, an informed source and two sources close to RBC told ITAR-TASS. TopFace is trying to assess whether it can effectively strengthen its website and mobile destination at the expense of Loveplanet, the first source said.

The information about the negotiations was not confirmed or denied by the head of TopFace Dmitry Filatov and Alexander Kononenko, the general director of Mediamir, which manages RBC's non-human assets.

RBC owns 76% of Loveplanet, the rest of the stake is owned by offshore Lintor Ltd. The portal can cost $10-12 million, Finam Vladislav Kochetkov told the management agency of the investment holding "."

"The plus of the project is brand recognition, but technologically the company is lagging behind in terms of mobile dating, and potential buyers will need to invest additional funds in the development of the service," he said^[12]

.

Former general director of Mediamir Pavel Rogozhin in August 2013 told ITAR-TASS that RBC plans to sell its Internet entertainment assets in a year and a half in order to focus on business assets.

As of June 30, 2014, 63.39% of RBC belonged to the ONEXIM group through the Cypriot structures Pragla Ltd and Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Ltd.

Managers bought RBK Money for 18 million rubles ($0.5 million)

RBC Holding approved the sale of 99 percent of shares in the non-bank credit institution Electronic Payment Service (NPO EPS), which is the operator of the RBK Money payment system.

As a result of the transaction, the company was valued at 18 million rubles ($0.5 million). The buyers were nine managers of the payment system (their names are not specified) and EastBound Limited, which already owns one percent of the share of NPO EPS. Each of the buyers will become the owner of ten percent in NGOs, paying 1.8 million rubles for their package.

Later, the publication Lenta.ru reported that among 9 buyers were Denis and Kirill Burlakov, who played a major role in the payment service business, as well as the former financial and general director of RBC Mani Sergei Baryshnikov, Deputy Financial Director of RBC Mani Tatyana Botvinkina, Head of the Legal Department of RBC Mani Sergey Lenintsev, former chief accountant of RBC Mani Elena Mayorova and the main organizer of the RBK Money payment system Andrei Morozov^[13].

Later it was reported that RBC sold the company at a loss to itself, while the company retained the old brand, RBC decided not to dispute the use of its trademark.

Election of a new Board of Directors

On June 27, 2014, shareholders elected the board of directors. According to the voting results, the board of directors of the company included:

1. Sauer Derk Eric, President of RBC OJSC;

2. Elena Olgerdovna Myasnikova, Vice President of RBC OJSC;

3. Molibog Nikolay Petrovich, General Director of RBC OJSC;

4. Alexander Mikhailovich Lyubimov, General Director of RBC-TV CJSC;

5. Ekaterina Mikhailovna Salnikova, Deputy Financial Director of ONEXIM Group LLC;

6. Valery Vladimirovich Senko, Investment Director of ONEXIM Group LLC;

7. Danilov Pavel Viktorovich, Deputy Investment Director of ONEXIM Group LLC;

8. Sergey Podsypanin, Director of the Legal Directorate of ONEXIM Group LLC;

9. Adamovich Yuri, General Director of First Rashn Ricovari LLC.

Sale of Readme.ru

On July 2, 2014, Zuckerberg Will reported that RBC had sold the Readme traffic network. According to the source of the CPU, Readme passed into the hands of a "private investor" for several hundred thousand dollars. There was no official confirmation of this information^[8].

Kommersant reports Prokhorov's attempts to sell RBC for $250 million

In August 2014, the Kommersant newspaper reported that ONEXIM Mikhail Prokhorov was ready to sell the RBC media holding. For control in it, he wants to get more than $250 million, taking into account the company's debt by about $227 million. The proposal is being discussed with the majority of owners of the largest Russian media assets, but there are no agreements on a deal^[14].

The fact that the ONEXIM group of Mikhail Prokhorov is discussing with potential buyers the possibility of selling the RBC holding, Kommersant was told by the heads of three large Russian media holdings, as well as two partners of Mr. Prokhorov in different businesses. According to Kommersant's interlocutors, consultations on this issue began in February 2014 and have been going on for several months, during which "almost all" the largest owners of Russian media assets got acquainted with the proposal in one way or another. The possibility of buying RBC was discussed, in particular, with the owner of SMP Bank Arkady Rotenberg, the owner of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant Vladimir Lisin, the Gazprom-Media holding and at least three other parties. None of them, according to Kommersant's information, are currently interested in a deal. Representatives of Mr. Rotenberg and Gazprom Media declined to comment. The representative of Vladimir Lisin says that such a proposal has not been received. General Director of ONEXIM Dmitry Razumov claims that the group does not discuss the possibility of selling RBC.

Some of the interlocutors associate Mikhail Prokhorov's desire to leave the project with the end of the active stage of his political career: in December 2013, he lost the post of leader of the Civic Platform party to his sister Irina, who already in July 2014 also announced a decision to leave him. Other sources suggest that the reasons are primarily economic - additional funding is needed for the development of RBC, and Mr. Prokhorov is not ready to invest personal funds, preferring to attract a third-party investor, while possibly retaining some share in the project.

In fact, Mikhail Prokhorov wants to at least return what he has already invested in RBC, says one of his acquaintances. ONEXIM began negotiations on the purchase of the holding in 2009, when it was in a difficult situation due to the crisis in the financial and advertising markets. The deal with RBC founders Herman Kaplun, Dmitry Belik and Alexander Morgulchik was closed in June 2010. 51.1% of the holding's parent company, according to official information, was estimated at $80 million. As of 30 June 2014, ONEXIM controlled a total of 63.39% of RBC through Cyprus-based Pragla Ltd and Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Ltd. The founders of RBC finally left the company in November 2013 after a conflict with the new management of the holding, including Sergei Lavrukhin, who headed it from April 2012 to November 2013.

After the arrival of the new management, the quality of RBC content has improved, but the costs of it are still incomparable with revenues, one of the holding's former top managers is sure. At the end of August, RBC in 2014 did not publish consolidated statements for either the first quarter or the half year.

Without taking into account the credit burden, control over RBC in a conversation with one of the applicants was estimated at about $50 million. According to the reporting of RBC OJSC for the second quarter, the company's long-term debt burden is 8.376 billion rubles. (about $249 million at the exchange rate at the end of the quarter). In particular, 7.638 billion rubles. ($227.1 million) falls on loans from the Dutch E.M.I.S. Finance B.V. - ONEXIM transferred RBC's obligations to creditors when buying the holding to this structure. A significant part of the debt falls on the structures of ONEXIM itself, says an interlocutor familiar with the situation. Another 737.203 million rubles. ($21.9 million) falls on six bond loans with maturities from 2015 to 2020. Together, ONEXIM wants to receive more than $250 million from the buyer, some of which will thus go to service the obligations of E.M.I.S. Finance to third parties. For example, Gazprom-Media, according to Kommersant's sources, was ready to pay only about $150 million, despite the fact that the credit burden would remain at ONEXIM. Another interlocutor motivated his refusal with political risks.

On August 21, 2014, the chairman of the board of directors of RBC Derk Sauer denied information about the possible sale of the media holding.

"There are

no negotiations on the sale of RBC's business. RBC is not for sale, "Sauer told ITAR-TASS

.

As of August 20, 2014, on the Moscow Exchange, RBC's capitalization was estimated at 1.536 billion rubles. ($42.5 million). Over the past year alone, the cost of the holding has almost halved - by 48.3% compared to August 23, 2013.

Another direction of Mikhail Prokhorov's media business - the Live group - was actually disbanded by the end of 2012. Only the eponymous TV channel and Snob magazine remained from the group.

Sale of 4 bonuses to RBC founders for 40 million rubles

In September 2014, RBC Holding sold to former shareholders Herman Kaplun and Alexander Morgulchik the rights to hold four annual business awards, including Narodnaya Mark N1 and Company of the Year. They paid only 40 million rubles for the event business. - for about the same amount, RBC itself bought Narodnaya Marka eight years ago. The holding itself will retain only the Brand of the Year/Effie award.

The Board of Directors of RBC OJSC approved the sale of 100% of Mark N1 LLC to 101 StartUp Limited, follows from the disclosure of the company's information. This structure is registered in Hong Kong and was created by the founders of RBC Herman Kaplun, Alexander Morgulchik and Artem Inyutin, headed by its former top manager of the holding Mikhail Gurevich. The deal has already closed, both sides confirmed. RBC spokeswoman Zlata Nikolaeva clarified that it included the Company of the Year, Person of the Year, Financial Olympus and Narodnaya Mark N1 awards. These are assets that "do not fit into RBC's development strategy." At the same time, the holding retained the Brand of the Year/Effie award and plans to develop it.

101 StartUp actually acquires not only the rights to hold the listed events, but also the team of managers who organized them, Alexander Morgulchik told Kommersant.

"This is a small event business, historically the awards were held by RBC, now we will hold them ourselves," he said. The most interesting, according to him, is the "People's Mark N1." This competition of consumer goods has existed since the late 1990s, RBC acquired the rights to hold it in 2006, paying for them, according to the holding's reports, 39 million rubles. Russians vote for the best brands of consumer goods (for example, glue, plastic windows, etc.), the awarding of the winners is held in the Kremlin and is accompanied by a concert with the participation of Russian pop stars, which is broadcast on Channel One. For example, the winners of the last "People's Brand" were, among other things, mayonnaise "Ryaba," hand cream "Velvet Pens." The Grand Prix of the last Person of the Year awards were received by Interros President Vladimir Potanin and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.

Holding such an event can cost about 30 million rubles, an estimated source in the event services market, most of the budget is spent on renting a hall in the Kremlin Palace, artist fees and television broadcasting. Organizers make money selling sponsorship packages. Despite the situation in the economy, the FMCG sector will continue to develop, so the prize will be in demand, Mr. Morgulchik is sure. The new owners plan to hold the People's Brand ceremony in December, the Company of the Year - possibly in the spring. But "Financial Olympus" and "Person of the Year," most likely, "in the current market situation" will not be held, he concludes.

The award gives, firstly, motivation for employees, and secondly, it adds value to the brand itself, says Vladimir Rusanov, head of public relations at Kh5 Retail Group (Perekrestok, Pyaterochka, Karusel retail chains).

"There

are many awards, but these are not third-rate, but status. There are formal partner packages, with no one guaranteeing your brand a win. We have never faced opaque situations, "he assures

.

However, now the economic situation is difficult, companies will not spend money to the right and left, he warns.

Sale of Anekdot.ru

On September 26, 2014, RBC's Board of Directors took note of the information "on the transaction on the alienation by Halverston Holdings Ltd of an 85 percent stake in the authorized capital of Анекдот.ру LLC (owns the anekdot.ru website). This is stated in the materials of disclosure of information of the media holding. The council approved the sale of the portal, the amount of the transaction was not disclosed, it should be completed in October.

Halverston Holdings, through which RBC owns a stake in anekdot.ru, is also the owner of the popular online dating service Loveplanet.ru (Lavplanet LLC) and Media World LLC. The latter was created in 2005 to develop entertainment Internet projects, around the same time RBC acquired control in Анекдот.ру.

Refusal to launch a business radio

On April 9, 2014, it became known that RBC abandoned the idea of ​ ​ launching a business radio station in 2014, a source familiar with the company's plans told ITAR-TASS.

"Business radio did not dare to do yet," he said.

This information was confirmed by another source close to RBC. According to him, in the coming year, the media holding is not going to invest in new projects. "Internet radio will not be able to immediately reach profitability, and money is needed to purchase frequencies," the source said.

Sources of ITAR-TASS told that RBC is considering the possibility of launching a business radio in mid-December 2013. The concept involved the start of broadcasting on the Internet with the subsequent possibility of buying frequencies. According to one of the ITAR-TASS sources, test broadcasting could begin at the end of the 1st quarter of 2014 on the basis of the QIP Internet portal/owned by RBC/.

In mid-March 2014, RBC-TVAlexander CEO Lyubimov confirmed the holding's interest in the radio project and estimated the required investment at up to $10 million. In 2013, RBC negotiated the purchase of the Finam FM radio station from the Finam holding, but in the end the asset was sold to other investors. According to ITAR-TASS sources, the asset was bought by the structures of businessman Mikhail Gutseriev^[15] of ​ ​ ^[15].

Sale of the publication "Утро.ру" to a group of private investors from Siberia

RBC media holding closed in February 2014 a deal to sell the online publication Утро.ру, two sources familiar with the details of the deal told ITAR-TASS. "The deal was concluded on Friday, February 7, by a group of individuals," said one of them, noting that the transaction amounted to about 300 million rubles^[16] of ^[17].

According to another source, the asset was estimated at 350-370 million rubles. Another source close to the media holding claims that the buyer of "Morning" was "a group of investors from Siberia with assets in the real sector of the economy and Internet resources about real estate and cars."

RBC General Director Nikolai Molibog, ONEXIM Group Executive Director Sergei Lavrukhin and Утро.ру Project Manager Alexander Nazarov declined to comment.

According to TNS data for December 2013, the monthly audience of Утро.ру was 5.25 million people per month - this is almost 23% of the audience of all RBC holding projects. The daily audience of the project averaged 344 thousand people during the specified period, or 11.7% of all visitors to RBC resources. According to a source close to RBC's management, Утро.ру 's annual revenue is about 60 million rubles a year.

2013

Sergey Lavrukhin's new strategy

From an interview with RBC CEO Sergei Lavrukhin to Газета.ру (January 2013)^[18]":

"We are now moving smoothly to a new development strategy until 2015, in which we will focus on strategic assets. RBC has historically launched a large number of startups and made many purchases as part of an investment strategy aimed at revenue growth and capitalization. This was right, because when the market grows, investments enter the country, and investors themselves begin to look for interesting companies to invest their funds. And here it is important to be in the public eye, to promote your company through deals.
At the beginning of 2008, the company cost more than $1 billion with financial indicators worse than the financial indicators of 2012, when the company costs 10 times less. Of course, there is a situation with a debt burden that affects capitalization. In general, we believe that the most important task of the company is to concentrate efforts on the marginality of the business, on those assets in which we are strong. According to preliminary results, for 2012 we plan to receive consolidated EBITDA in the range of 600 million rubles. In the budget for 2013, we plan to significantly increase this indicator. We plan to increase revenue this year by more than 25%. Of course, growth rates will vary across different segments. At the same time, we focus on optimizing the expenditure part and try to make all projects profitable.
Only in the segment of television in the budget there is a very small minus.

• RBC Money, Salon-Press, RBC daily in St. Petersburg and RBC Ukraine are not included in the holding's budget. Are these the projects you plan to part with?

Yes. We have already parted with the electronic payment system and the newspaper in St. Petersburg. Plus, some projects in the entertainment Internet segment have not yet been included in this list. The Media-Mir company, which oversees all the holding's non-human projects, has a new general director, Pavel Rogozhin. On the entertainment Internet, we plan to optimize all projects. This does not always mean abandoning them or cutting costs. For example, the discount service "Kupongid." We entered the company in 2011 and until 2014, under an option agreement, we must redeem 10% of the shares every six months. We see that the project indicators are growing, and last week we decided to buy out the next 10%.

• Do you consider Derk Sower's retention of a post on the SIM supervisory board as a conflict of interest?

So far, I do not see a conflict of interest. Derk and Elena Myasnikova and I have developed constructive business relations. Now we are discussing the issue of debt burden. Its decline is one of the key goals for 2013. And we understand that it is impossible to radically reduce the debt burden only due to operating indicators, even having fulfilled or exceeded the budget.

• Have you developed a debt restructuring strategy?

The debt was restructured back in 2010 as part of a deal to buy RBC by the Onexim group. Today, the debt burden is about $212 million. About half must be paid until 2015, the second - until 2018. In 2013, the company must earn at least $35 million, only to service the debt.
This year we will earn positive EBITDA from operating activities, plus by selling non-core assets we will receive several tens of millions of dollars. So the company is not going to default again. But because of the debt, we cannot normally invest in new projects, since at the end of the year we need to pay a significant amount of money to creditors.

• Do you have an understanding of how to get out of this situation?

On the business Internet, we make interesting projects on our own, but they still need additional investments. In 2012, we launched RBC Sport. This is an internal project, but still the volume of investments is at least $1.5 - 2 million in people and development.
Before the New Year, we have updated RBC Style, will update the style of RBC Travel, and will create a project for innovation.

• Is the purchase of radio frequency relevant or is it a question of the future?

In general, we are interested in the radio segment. Radio can successfully fit into the line of our business media.

• Will you buy a frequency or a working profile radio station?

We are considering different options.

• Does the work of previous owners and management complicate negotiations? Was parting with them painful for the company?

I have never seen Herman Kaplun since his firing. The last time we saw each other was in early April 2012, even before the board of directors decided to change management.

• Are there any mutual claims?

Now shareholders are communicating with German to fulfill certain agreements. I do not participate in these negotiations and do not interfere in discussions.

• Do you see synergy with other media assets of Prokhorov, in particular with Snob magazine?

By "Snob" - no: he has a different audience. Elena Myasnikova also oversees the assets of the Live media group.

• How do you see the development of business journalism, in particular RBC, in the long term?

Now the trend prevails, in which information becomes quickly available and free. I personally don't believe in paying for content. The speed of information that is now will increase. Today, people are not ready to pay for information. We have a closed news feed. It's the work of a news agency that creates about 700 news a day, and we're seeing interest in paid subscriptions diminish. For example, RIA Novosti may continue to work according to this scheme, but they are subsidized by the state, and we ourselves must earn money for bread and butter. We are going to fully open the news feed and change the editorial policy, creating, for example, 200 good quality news that we will give to open access. You can effectively monetize an open feed not only through advertising, but also through various services. And services also need to be developed - their share in the holding's revenue is 30%. In 2013, we plan to increase our share to 35%.

• That is, the future of business media is the development of services?

The content will remain. High-quality and timely content attracts an audience. But, having consumed this content, the person is still looking for something different. All the rest of the time when a person does not consume information, he is busy with something else, and it is important that at this time he would be on your resource for as long as possible - he was looking for a loan, thinking on which deposit to place funds, looking for health insurance, thinking where to spend a vacation or which apartment to buy. And this is a question not only of content, but also of services.
The second trend is the growth of mobile advertising. In 2012, our advertising revenues in this area quadrupled. In terms of growth, mobile advertising is an order of magnitude ahead of online advertising. Another question is that it's always easy to grow from a small base, but advertisers are becoming more and more interested in this direction.

The third trend is that more and more advertisers are interested in special projects, and even on TV they come not only for regular advertising, but more and more for special projects.

Regional version in Tatarstan

In the second quarter of 2013, RBC launched a regional version of the portal in Tatarstan, which is the content of the federal website Rbc.ru with integrated local partner news in the region. Soon after the launch, the local version of the portal took the position of a leader in the region among online business media. RBC plans to ensure the presence of Rbc.ru in all Russian cities with a population of one million.

New Mobile App

RBC has released a new mobile application "RBC News" for smartphones and tablets based on iOS and Android. The application entered the top 10 most downloaded applications and occupies a leading position in the "News" category in the App Store. The first advertisers of the updated app were several major automakers. Also in the second quarter of 2013, RBC released a new version of the Loveplanet dating service application for the iPad. The app is among the highest grossing in the Social Media category of the App Store.

Starting Relax.ru - Combining All Non-Human Resources

In April 2013, RBC launched the Relax.ru Internet project, which included an entertainment site Ziza.qip.ru and a resource on gadgets and technologies Creep.ru. The main feature of the project is the emphasis on the personalization of content: it seeks to adapt to its user, forming a tape in accordance with its interests. By the end of 2013, other fully updated non-human resources from the portal group should be integrated into the project Qip.ru. As of the end of June, the Relax.ru audience amounted to 1.4 million users per month. The first advertisers of the project were Lexus and Philip Morris. In the near future - the release of mobile applications Relax.ru.

Failed talks with AxelSpringer over share swap

In 2013, even before the emergence of the law "on foreigners in the media," Derk Sauer, in the role of chairman of the board of directors, went to Germany to meet with the owners of the Axel Springer publishing house. He wanted to offer them to "exchange shares": AxelSpringer would become a minority shareholder of RBC, and he, in turn, would absorb the Russian assets of the German ID - primarily the Russian version of Forbes magazine. Curiously, Prokhorov had already tried to buy "Russian Newsweek" from AxelSpringer; in 2010, the magazine was closed due to financial problems. Forbes, unlike Russian Newsweek, was a profitable asset, and AxelSpringer was going to bargain for it. According to one of the negotiators, the Germans valued RBC holding at $50 million, while Derk Sauer believed that it was worth at least $120 million. One way or another, negotiations have stalled.

CEO Sergey Lavrukhin leaves the company

On July 23, 2013, RBC announced that Sergey Lavrukhin had decided to leave the post of CEO of RBC on August 26, 2013.

Sale of Salon-Press Publishing House

In September 2013, the German publishing house Burda agreed to purchase the publishing house Salon-Press, 80% of which belonged to the RBC media holding. As follows from the message of the German holding, the deal is planned to be closed at the end of 2013 after approval by the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The beneficiary of the remaining 20% of Salon Press is considered to be the general director and one of the founders of the publishing house —Sergey Shustov.

RBC in 2006 acquired 60% of ID for 634 million rubles, or about $26 million, and in 2008 bought another 20% for 191 million rubles, or $7.8 million. In 2007, the brand "Ideas of Your Home" was estimated at $8 million, Salon Interior —v $5 million.

Burda may pay $15-20 million for Salon Press, two sources familiar with the negotiations say. RBC has been selling non-core ED since the end of 2008, when the holding was unable to pay off loans and came under the control of the Onexim group of Mikhail Prokhorov. At various times, Salon Press was interested in Independent Media (IM, Independent Media), Hearst Shlulev Media, Axel Springer, but they were not satisfied with the price of $30 million announced by the seller. One of the last real contenders for the purchase of Salon Press was considered entrepreneur Boris Belotserkovsky, whose wife Veronika manages the Top 50 publishing house (Time Out, Dog magazines). In negotiations with him, an amount of less than $25 million appeared, and subsequently RBC again had to reduce the price, the source said.

Of RBC's six divisions, only three were profitable in 2012, including the Salon Press publishing house. With revenue of 548 million rubles. his net profit was 89 million rubles. In the first half of 2013, ED revenues decreased by 4% to RUB 242 million. Advertising revenues of all federal interior publications in the first half of the year decreased, according to the Video International analytical center (ACVI), by 1% to 453 million rubles. excluding VAT.

The business models "Salon-Press" and Burda differ: the first is focused on advertising, the second earns more on the implementation of the circulation, said Alexander Efremov, an expert at the ACVI.

Burda is the largest publishing house in Russia in terms of the total audience of magazines: according to TNS Russia, in May — October 2012 this is 18.6 million readers. "Salon Press" in this indicator takes 15th place with 2.8 million readers.

Onexim bought a block of shares from the founders of the company

In November 2013, it became known that the Onexim group bought a stake in the RBC media holding from the founders of Herman Kaplun, Alexander Morgulchik and Dmitry Belik, a source close to the deal told RBC. According to him, the ex-general director of RBC-TV Artem Inyutin and the former deputy general director of RBC Sergey Lukin also sold their shares. Thus, the founders of the holding finally left the capital of the company: until recently, Remedy Trade, representing the interests of the founders of RBC, owned 6.17% of the company's shares.

The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but as of the end of business on November 12, 2013. RBC's capitalization on the Moscow Exchange was about 2.27 billion rubles. Thus, the market value of the redeemed package is about 140 million rubles.

Complete update of top management

Sauer's influence in RBC was becoming more and more significant. According to the general director of the holding, Sergei Lavrukhin, Sauer from the very beginning intervened in the operating activities of the company - to the point that he said who should be fired and who should be hired. The conflicts of Sauer and Lavrukhin became commonplace; In the summer of 2013, Lavrukhin learned from journalists that he had been picked up a replacement.

Nikolay Molibog was appointed Deputy General Director. In addition, Ekaterina Son, publisher of The Moscow Times, was included in the management. In December 2013, Ekaterina Kruglova, former executive director of Afisha-Rambler, was appointed deputy general director of RBC holding.

Having failed to acquire the Russian Forbes, Derk Sauer decided to acquire not Forbes itself, but his team. At the end of November 2013, the editor-in-chief of the magazine Elizabeth Osetinskaya headed the editorial board of RBC. Together with her, many key employees of the publication left, including the deputy editor-in-chief Valery Igumenov (headed by RBC magazine), editor Elena Tofanyuk, columnist Irina Malkova and several correspondents.

Molybog is the general director. New Board Composition

In December 2013, by a decision of the company's board of directors, from January 10, 2014, Derk Sauer was appointed chairman of the board of directors of RBC. In addition, since January 10, 2014, the post of CEO of RBC has been held by Nikolai Molibog, who previously held the post of First Deputy CEO of the company.

"I am very glad that Nikolai will head RBC," said the current CEO of RBC Derk Sauer. - Over the past four months, we have formed a new top management team that will give impetus to the development of the company. Now that the team led by Nikolai has begun work, I can again head the RBC Board of Directors. I will continue to work closely with Nikolai to successfully complete RBC's transformation process. "

In addition, the composition of the RBC board has been updated. From January 10, 2014, it included:

• Derk Sauer, President of OJSC RBC;
• Nikolay Molibog, General Director of RBC OJSC (Chairman);
• Elena Myasnikova, Vice President of RBC OJSC;
• Alexander Lyubimov, General Director of RBC-TV CJSC;
• Ekaterina Kruglova, Deputy General Director of RBC OJSC;
• Maria Erlandz, Deputy General Director of RBC OJSC for Finance and Economics.

Debt restructuring

In 2013, RBC held negotiations with creditors on the conversion of debt into shares, which, however, were unsuccessful. At that time, the holding's debt was $215 million. It was reported that RBC managed to agree with part of the creditors on the postponement of payments, with others the holding paid for advertising on resources.

On December 27, 2013, RBC OJSC announced that it had reached an agreement with creditors to amend the terms of the loan agreement signed as part of the debt restructuring in April 2010.

As a result, the maturity of credit notes was changed. In particular, the repayment of class A notes (total face value of $123.6 million) is postponed from May 2015 to November 2020, and the repayment of class B notes (total face value of $78.1 million) is postponed from May 2018 to November 2022. Coupon rates on notes A and B remain unchanged. The new terms provide for deferred payment of interest income on notes A accumulated for the period from November 2013 to November 2014, followed by payment in equal installments in May and November 2015. Interest accrued on notes A for the period from November 2014 will be paid every six months annually until the full repayment date (the first payment will be made in May 2015). On Notes B, interest income will continue to accrue, but not capitalize, with deferred payment until the maturity date of the principal amount in 2022. At the same time, the company is exempted from the need for early repayment of part of the debt on notes A in 2013 and 2014.

The main restrictions contained in the loan agreement on the acquisition and disposal of assets were also removed, which will allow RBC to more effectively realize strategic and financial opportunities, thereby increasing the potential for business growth.

"I am pleased that

we are finally able to share this news, as everyone was waiting for a comprehensive solution to the issue with creditors. This is a very important step forward for RBC, and, in particular, next year it will allow us to direct all financial resources to business development, "said RBC CEO Derk Sauer

.

Creditors who controlled 64% of the total face value of the voting notes voted to make decisions, while it was enough to exceed the 50% threshold for approval. It is expected that the execution of the relevant decisions will be completed by the end of 2013.

The terms of warrants and ruble bonds of RBC OJSC remain unchanged. The consultant on the transaction was the investment bank Renaissance Capital.

Agreement with US agency BBG

A 2013 report by the US General Inspectorate indicates that RBC has an officially signed cooperation agreement with the US government broadcasting agency BBG.

The total audience is 47 million people. Business results of the year

RBC's total audience in December 2013 was 47.4 million unique users (TNS data).

Domains and hosting. Among the new products of this area is the service of renting servers abroad (in France and the USA) for companies focused on European and American users. Also, in the reporting period, large-scale work was carried out to prepare for the launch of a VDS-hosting service designed to host large corporate sites, store large amounts of information and test applications for various operating systems.

Television. In the reporting period, as part of the information support for the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games, where the RBC channel acted as a general partner and official broadcaster, the Sportivnaya Volya project was launched, within the framework of which issues related to the preparation of games, as well as in general the problems of disabled people in Russia, were discussed in the channel's studio. In addition to this project, the following new programs were also added to the RBC broadcasting network: "Book Forest" (a program with the participation of Viktor Erofeev and prominent figures of business and culture about books and literary hobbies), "Asia" (program with the participation of Nikolai Velichko on the economy of Southeast Asia), "New Legends" (a story about young entrepreneurs and their success in business), the business reality show "Challenge" (a training program for young entrepreneurs) and "Evtukhov. Industry" (a program with the participation of Viktor Yevtukhov, talking about various aspects of Russian foreign trade).

The average monthly audience coverage of the RBC channel in Russia increased by 11% over the year to 22.6 million viewers in December 2013. At the same time, on average, 3.2 million viewers watched the channel during the day at the end of the year, which is 22% more than in 2012.

Business press. RBC's business print sales decreased by 35% in the fourth quarter to RUB 111 million, including due to the lack of alcohol advertising campaigns in RBC's print media in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to the large volume of such advertising in the fourth quarter of 2012 (due to the introduction of a ban on alcohol advertising in print media since the beginning of 2013). At the same time, RBC managed to partially compensate for losses at the expense of the budgets of other product categories.

In 2013, the RBC daily newspaper strengthened its position as the second largest audience of the daily business print publication and as the largest business newspaper on the Internet. RBC magazine confirmed the status of the leader of the business press of the capital.

2012

Prokhorov is trying to expand the media business on the basis of RBC

Having acquired RBC, Mikhail Prokhorov pondered how to build a truly serious media business on its basis. At first, he planned to merge the holding with Snob and the Live! Group, But, according to Meduza (May 2016), he was dissuaded from this by representatives of both parties - both Sergei Lavrukhin and Herman Kaplun. They hardly stopped Prokhorov, as if tasting, from negotiating other purchases on the media market.

"We

avoided it as much as we could," says a source close to the then leadership of RBC. - Prokhorov regularly called Kaplun, and it looked even funny from the outside: yes, Mikhail Dmitrievich, thank you, no, not "Russian Newsweek '."

Former Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC Lavrukhin confirms that negotiations with the owners of Russian Newsweek, the German holding AxelSpringer, were indeed conducted:

"The deal

could have taken place. But we looked at the financial condition of the magazine and found no sense. The weekly press was dying in principle, and Newsweek was no exception. "

According to him, Prokhorov in the period 2010-2012 also considered the possibility of combining his publications with the media assets of the entrepreneur Alexandra Mamuta and his group (SUP Media among the assets at that time - Livejournal and Газета.ру). Lavrukhin, on behalf of Prokhorov, also negotiated with the founders of the private TV channel "" Rain(began broadcasting in 2010) Natalya Sindeeva and Alexander Vinokurov about a possible merger with RBC, but the parties did not agree. Finally, Prokhorov also looked closely at the largest private Russian news agency "": Interfax on his behalf, ONEXIM investigated the prospects and risks of this transaction. However, the co-owner and general director of Interfax, Mikhail Komissar, was not interested in this proposal, Lavrukhin says.

Stock Supplementation Plans

April 9, 2012:

"We announced an additional share issue in early 2012. ONEXIM has already announced that it is ready to buy out 51% of the additional issue so as not to dilute its share. Together with him, more than 70% of current shareholders said they were ready to participate in the issue. But so far we have not announced the beginning of the placement, so we can implement this both in the fall of this year and at the beginning of next year^[19]

Package on RBC Money payment system up for sale

About RBC Money: RBC may sell its 74 percent stake in RBC Money. But it all depends on the offer. We are ready to sell these assets, despite their high growth, but only for good money (Herman Kaplun, RBC CEO, April 2012^[19]

In the same year, RBC sold its stake in the RBC Money system.

Sergey Lavrukhin is the head of RBC. The founders of the company are leaving

On April 10, 2012, it became known that Onexim (controls 51% of the shares of RBC OJSC) convened an extraordinary meeting of the company's board of directors, which is scheduled for April 13, Sergei Lavrukhin, chairman of the board of directors of the media holding, told Vedomosti, the main issue of the agenda was the removal of RBC CEO Herman Kaplun. His place should be taken by Lavrukhin, the current executive director^[18] group^[18] his^[18].

During the 2008 crisis, the company lost funds and could not cope with the debt burden, it was threatened with bankruptcy. In the summer of 2010, Onexim agreed to restructure RBC's debts, having bought 51% of RBC's shares (the main assets of the media holding were transferred to this legal entity). The founders of the company had a 7.07% stake in RBC, they were not going to change the management of Onexim. At the end of 2010, Mikhail Prokhorov told Vedomosti that although "partners from RBC decided to speculate on shares with the company's funds and the money disappeared during the crisis, from the point of view of the business itself, they acted successfully<...>. I have very good contact with German [Kaplun]."

But "contact" has since deteriorated. "We are at an impasse on a number of issues," admits a source in Onexima. The founders of the holding, according to him, are delaying the issue of holding an additional issue of RBC, since they do not have money to buy back shares to maintain a stake, and RBC needs funds for development. In addition, top managers did not return to the company the $46 million borrowed during the financial crisis in 2008, he continues: "They offer to take away the collateral for this loan - RBC shares, the value of which now does not exceed $6 million, and forgive the rest."

Finally, Onexim raises questions about the work of partners in TMT Investments: Kaplun and Morgulchik - advisers to this investment fund, as well as beneficiaries of the offshore MacMillan Trading (owns 20% of TMT) - this is similar to working for competitors. On the website of the fund, created in 2010, there are already 12 projects in which it participates.

The "last straw," according to the interlocutor of Vedomosti, was the refusal received from Kaplun to offer to resolve all these controversial issues. Morgulchik told Vedomosti that Onexim's claims were unfounded. Participation in TMT Investments does not violate the agreements of RBC shareholders in any way, managers have no debts to RBC, minority shareholders have already agreed on all the terms of the additional issue, except for the price, but it is determined immediately before the placement, he lists counterarguments.

There is no reason to change the CEO, he is sure: "RBC showed very good results in 2011, and the forecast for 2012 is positive." In 2011, RBC's revenue grew by 35% to 4.7 billion rubles, and EBITDA - 6 times to 524 million rubles, the company reported. The main reason for disagreements with Onexim is the payment of bonuses to the top management of RBC for 2010-2011, according to a Vedomosti source in the holding.

The company did not repay the debt of $46 million, confirmed Anton Kiryukhin, a member of the board of directors of RBC, but there was no official confirmation that the money was borrowed by the founders of RBC. According to him, the main claim of Onexim to management is that the proposed plans for the development of RBC are not supported by funding sources, and management, apparently, is confident that it is acting correctly.

"A man who is used to being a co-owner will not psychologically be able to work as a hired manager," his former colleague says of Kaplun. If Kaplun leaves the company, then almost "the entire team" will leave the company after him - at least the top management, predicts one of RBC's top managers.

True, RBC is not the first media asset of Onexima, where the group decisively changes the entire leadership and dismisses the founders. In the fall of 2011, the holding fired the general director of the Live! Media group Yuri Katsman and parted with the founder of the Snob project Vladimir Yakovlev.

SD approved the sale of RBK Money for $8 million, but "the deal did not take place." All assets transferred to NPO EPS, debts remained in RBC Money

At the end of August 2012, RBC's board of directors approved the sale of 74% of the RBK Money payment system (that is, the entire stake owned by RBC) to the Cyprus holding Trigale Investments Ltd. The announced amount of the transaction is $8.44 million. According to Izvestia, offshore operates in the interests of RBC Money CEO Andrei Morozov, who owned the remaining 26% of the company before the deal.

RBC CEO Sergei Lavrukhin told the publication that RBC "will continue to cooperate with RBK Money." In addition, after RBK Money was recognized as a non-core asset and information about the upcoming sale that was sold on the market, RBC launched the RBC Travel service (search for air tickets and hotels) on its platform.

RBC Roem.ru said that the RBK Money brand will remain with Trigale Investments limited for a certain period. RBC Travel - the RBK Money project and transferred to the new owner as part of the completed transaction^[8].

As representatives of RBK Money told TAdviser later, the Cypriot holding company Trigale Investment Limited, controlled by RosBusinessConsulting OJSC, initially owned the RBK Money payment system after its acquisition in 2008 from the founders of the service. In 2012, as part of a plan to sell non-core (non-core) assets, RBC was going to sell the RBK Money payment system to a strategic investor, but the transaction did not take place.

Later in May 2017, it became known that Czech Mayzus Property Management announced its intention to bankrupt the RBKMoney payment system. This follows from the notification in the unified register of legally significant information.

As follows from the materials of case No. A40-134600/2015 (), in November 2011, Insta Dealing LLC and RBC Money LLC signed an agreement on joining the RBK Money payment system and information technology exchange services.

"According to the terms of the contract, the operator provides the participant with access to the system and undertakes to provide information technology exchange services for remuneration, aimed at ensuring interaction and mutual settlements between the participant and users within the framework of bilateral relations between them, and the participant undertakes to comply with the rules of the system and pay for the operator's services, as provided for by the contract," - indicated in the court materials.

The defendant (RBC Money LLC) was provided with services in the amount of 154.541 million rubles. But the company did not see this money. In September 2013, between Insta Dealing LLC and Mayzus Property Management s.r.o. an agreement was concluded on the assignment of the right of claim (cession), under its terms, claims for 141.941 million rubles were transferred to Mayzus.

Mayzus Property Management sued RBK Money in July 2015 - the company demanded 145 million rubles from the payment system. In the summer of 2016, the court satisfied the claims of Mayzus Property Management in full^[20].

At the same time, a letter to the FSB, in which Sergei Mayzus asks law enforcement officers to pay attention to the situation (a copy is at the disposal of Ленты.ру), states that at the end of 2012 RBC Mani LLC became completely insolvent.

"With total accounts payable of RUB 254.4 million, there were no fixed assets or other liquid assets. At the same time (...) the revenue of RBC Money LLC in 2013 amounted to only 9.9 million rubles (that is, decreased by more than 15 times), and in 2014 - only 9 thousand rubles. For 2015, the financial statements did not give up at all, "the document says.

Representatives of Mayzus Property Management accuse the management of the payment system of fraud. After "in 2011-2012, RBC Money LLC fraudulently appropriated RBK Money customers' money in the amount of over 150 million rubles, PJSC RBC transferred the promoted payment system and all liquid assets to its subsidiary, LLC NPO "EPS" - with the abandonment of a large debt on a deprived business and deliberately bankrupt LLC RBC Money, "- says the complaint about the inaction of law enforcement agencies of the director of Mayzus Property Management Sergei Mayzus dated October 29, 2019 addressed to President Vladimir Putin (available at the disposal of the editorial office, copies of the letter were sent to the FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein).

That is, from a legal point of view, the payment system at this time has nothing to do with RBC Mani LLC. It is controlled by the NPO EPS.

RBC Money LLC transferred free of charge to the accounts of NPO EPS LLC more than 23 million rubles, transferred to offshore companies the RBK Money trademark, rbkmoney.ru domain, software, without payment ceded to the Cypriot company the right to claim debt in the amount of 18 million rubles from PJSC RBC, and also disposed of other receivables in the amount of over 275 million rubles without receiving any funds to the accounts of LLC "RBC Mani," - this is already stated in the complaint to the Investigative Committee of Russia and the Control Department of the President of Russia.

The businessman is confident that since "2009, the management of RBC and its subsidiary RBC Mani LLC have created a scheme for tax evasion, legalization (laundering) of criminally obtained funds, as well as illegal withdrawal of currency abroad." According to the conclusions of experts dated October 30, 2019, the real market value of the trademark and domain alone in 2012 was 199.5 million rubles, the domain was sold in 2013 to the British company RBK Money Limited for only 4.9 thousand rubles, and the trademark was transferred to the Cypriot RBK Money Holdings Limited for 2.3 million rubles. A detailed analysis of the financial statements of the company shows that by 2011 the total debt on the company's obligations amounted to more than 650 million rubles.

Sergei Baryshnikov, the former general director of RBC Money, according to a Ленты.ру source, explained the occurrence of debt to Insta Diling LLC as follows:

"When RBC Mani LLC was bought by RBC Holding, they were promised media support and financing." "But when in 2012 the Central Bank demanded that all payment systems obtain a license and the company developed a financial hole, it turned to RBC holding. However, she was denied funding, "he claims. Then, as Baryshnikov told the source of "Ленты.ру," due to the fact that the service had many clients, it turned out to be easier to transfer small clients to the new NPO "EPS," and the only large client - "Insta Dealing" - "throw overboard."

NPO "EPS," having received a promoted payment system, was also supposed to take over the debts of RBK Money. Although Denis Burlakov spoke about this, nothing like this happened. Representatives of RBK Money for three years communicated with the injured party, promising to return all funds. In particular, the board of NPO EPS Kirill Burlakov, in his letter to Sergei Mayzus dated April 13, 2014 (a copy is at the disposal of Ленты.ру), promised to pay off the entire amount of the debt by the end of January 2015. But of the 141.9 million rubles, RBC Mani paid MAYZUS Property Management only a small part: first 13.2 million, and in October 2014 - 4 million rubles. In 2015, when the statute of limitations in the Mayzus Property Management case expired, RBC Money LLC entered the bankruptcy stage, and all assets were transferred to NPO EPS, an affiliated company.

In August 2018, representatives of the payment system told TAdviser that Mayzus's statements about "intention to bankrupt the RBK Money payment system" and "to satisfy claims in the summer of 2016" were not true. Mayzus was never a customer/merchant of the RBK Money payment system and had no other commercial or financial relationship with the payment system.

"We are aware of the existence of a Russian legal entity - RBC Money LLC, which is owned by Trigale Investment Ltd and Eastbound Limited, and to which Mayzus probably has financial claims. This Russian legal entity has nothing to do with the RBK Money payment system and has never been part of the RBK Money group of companies led by the Cypriot holding company RBK Money Holdings Limited. The RBK Money payment system (updated brand - RBK.money) operates in the Russian Federation in accordance with the law through its own operator NPO EPS. "

Prokhorov meets Sower and appoints him chairman of the board of directors

Despite the fact that Prokhorov's strategist Sergei Lavrukhin joined the management of RBC, the holding's reputation problems did not go away: readers and colleagues still raised questions about RBC's overly trusting relations with advertisers and the quality of media products.

At the end of 2012, Mikhail Prokhorov met the Dutchman Derk Sauer, the founder of the Independent Media holding, the publisher of the Vedomosti newspaper. A source in the ONEXIM group says that Prokhorov suggested that Sauer head the RBC board of directors in order to bring the holding's publications to a qualitatively new level.

In 2013, Derk Sauer joined RBC with Elena Myasnikova (appointed vice president of RBC).

2011

Purchase of Ru-Center

In March 2011, it became known that the Hosting Community company controlled by RBC announced the acquisition of the Ru-Center registrar.

In September 2011, the company announced plans to place 51,109,375 new shares by open subscription to finance the purchase of Russia's leading domain name registrar and hosting provider Ru-Center, as well as other transactions. As a result, the total number of issued shares will increase by 16%, to 370 000 000.

The main shareholder of RBC - the ONEXIM group, which owns 51% - announced its intention to exercise the pre-emptive right to buy out 51% of the placed issue. It is not known whether other shareholders will exercise their pre-emptive right or not, however, if we assume that Polyus Gold and the management of the company, which owns, respectively, 6% and 11% of RBC shares, will not exercise their rights, then about 25 million shares will be sold on the open market, which will lead to an increase in the number of shares in free float by 24.5%, up to 127 million units of^[21]

September 28, 2011, Executive Director of ONEXIM Sergey Lavrukhin:

Media assets are developed in accordance with the budgets adopted for 2011. The main news concerns the RBC group of companies. For example, last week RBC announced a number of new acquisitions, expanding the boundaries of its presence in the Internet business. This applies to the closure of the transaction for the purchase of 100% of the Ru-Center business and the purchase of a controlling stake in the Ogorod Internet portal^[21].

Thanks to the first acquisition, RBC becomes No. 1 in the Russian hosting market. Here, the growth prospects are very good, since the pace of development of high-speed data transmission networks and, accordingly, the number of Internet users in Russia will be high for several more years

.

As for the purchase of the Internet portal OGOROD - this is primarily the purchase of technology and the base of the geolocation service. This is a very trendy direction of the development of Internet services and especially, taking into account the integration of the OGOROD portal with the communication service, QIP we expect a significant effect in this direction. Speaking about QIP, which is now adapted for the system Android , on the very first day QIP recorded a record number of downloads and entered the top 5 applications on. Android Market We can say without modesty that we are in trend, focusing on the development of mobile applications.

RBC TV also has something to boast about in 2011, namely the new transformer studio, made according to the latest technology.

In addition, there was another significant event - the signing of an agreement on editorial cooperation with the world leader in the business news market - Bloomberg TV, which, as we expect, will be even closer in terms of strategic cooperation and content exchange.

Alexander Lyubimov headed RBC-TV

On November 16, 2011, it became known that TV journalist Alexander Lyubimov headed the RBC TV business channel. As general director of the channel, Lyubimov replaced Artem Inyutin, who now became chairman of the board of directors of RBC-TV. According to Inyutin, Lyubimov is faced with the task of further developing the channel and increasing its audience. In addition, new information and analytical programs should be launched on RBC-TV in the near future.

On November 7, Lyubimov confirmed that he had been consulting the channel for more than a year, and added that the holding had begun to conduct "different negotiations" with him about further cooperation.

Stock collapse 30% in two weeks

The shares of the RBC media holding for more than two weeks of November 2011 fell by almost 30%^[22]. The company itself explains the collapse of quotations by exchange speculation, and not by business results or plans for an additional issue.

Fluctuations in stock prices of the Rosbusinesconsulting holding, which take place at very high trading turnover, may be associated with market manipulation, the company's management said in a statement released yesterday. The controlling shareholder of the media holding, the Onexim group, adheres to the same version. "We do not have a clear understanding of what is happening with stocks, we suspect that there are big speculative deals with a large trading volume," said Sergei Lavrukhin, executive director of Onexima and chairman of the board of directors of RBC. "Therefore, we appealed to the FSFM and this Friday we will convene an emergency board of directors of RBC on this issue."

Since the end of October 2011, the holding's shares have fallen in price by almost 30% - from 21.89 rubles. per share on October 27 to 16 rubles. by the close of yesterday's trading. At the same time, the average daily turnover increased from the traditional 9-11 million to 170.8 million rubles. (October 27) and reached a maximum of 317.6 million rubles. November 11. A sharp change in the volume of trading and quotations began on October 27 - on this day the holding's board of directors scheduled a meeting to approve the additional issue of shares. The council unanimously approved the issue of 51.1 million new shares (13.8% of the increased authorized capital), Aton was chosen as the agent for the sale of securities, the offering price has not yet been determined. Lavrukhin does not see a connection with the fall in quotations here, because RBC has not yet received permission from the FSFM to conduct an additional issue, he points out, and it is not yet known whether the company will place new shares by the end of 2011.

"After the announcement of an additional issue, quotations often decline. But this is not a rule, "says Svetlana Sukhanova, an analyst at UBS Bank (UBS, United Business Systems). "The reason is probably different." But Sukhanova does not know her. The company itself in a statement claims that the negative dynamics of quotations is not related to the operating activities of the holding, since all three main business areas of the company "demonstrate revenue growth."

True, from the published report of RBC OJSC on RAS it follows that the company has accumulated almost 346 million rubles. uncovered net loss due to a change in the exchange rate (the bulk of the debt is denominated in foreign currency - this is $280 million from EMIS Finance). Lavrukhin says this that it is necessary to look at the reporting under IFRS for six months, according to which the company has a net profit. So RBC needs an additional issue of shares not to cover losses, but to develop its business and M&A transactions, the top manager assures. Onexim will participate in the additional issue and will retain control over RBC, he said.

Sale of non-core assets

On November 22, 2011, the Board of Directors of RBC Group decided to sell non-core assets to finance the investment program of the media holding for 2012.

"If all non-core assets are sold, the company will be able to fully implement the planned investment program," RBC said in a statement.

The Board of Directors instructed RBC management to negotiate, prepare a plan for the sale of non-core assets and submit the final decision to the Board for consideration by the end of 2011.

The media holding also decided to postpone the placement of additional shares in the company due to poor market conditions. RBC's Board of Directors decided to discuss the feasibility of the actual implementation of the additional issue, the timing of the start and the price of its placement in the spring of 2012 "depending on the market conditions that will be at that time."

On December 20, 2011, in an interview, the executive director of the Onexim group, Sergei Lavrukhin, gave information about plans for the sale of non-core assets of RBC: ^[23]): "We believe that we bought RU-CENTER at least twice as cheap as it costs now, and when combined with our hosting assets, it can cost even more. We decided to acquire this asset at the end of the summer of 2011, within three days we assembled the board of directors, voted, entered into a deal, signed obligations, and today, by combining our assets, we receive player number one with more than 50% control of the domain name and hosting market in Runet</blockquote>.

The domain market is growing every year, and for the fourth year in a row, growth is 20-25%. Growth is also forecast for the next four years. You can compare Russia with the same Germany, where 90 million inhabitants and 6 times more domain names. Of course, we depend on the development of telecom in Russia: how quickly broadband Internet will appear in small cities of the country. This pushes the related services market, domain name and hosting market. We are leaders in this segment, growing with the market and even faster. To close the deal with RU-CENTER, RBC has a need to raise funds. We can conduct an additional issue of shares, although now is not the best market situation. We can see how much more interesting it is now to sell Salon or sell a stake in Mango Telecom, and through the sale of such non-core assets that reduce the growth rate of the entire holding, transfer money from one non-core asset to another - profile. For example, money from Salon, which can provide 10% growth, will be invested in a hosting business that will give 25% growth and higher margins. In the publishing business, the margin is 12-15%, and in hosting you can achieve - 20-25

%. We have

an offer from a large bank to buy the RBC-Money service. We plan to make a decision within a month: either sell or develop ourselves. The segment related to electronic money for the year increased in terms of turnover of funds on users' wallets and in terms of the number of users themselves by 75% compared to 2010. According to Salon Press, we will also resolve the issue in the near future.

For the tourism business, the transaction price is not so high. The cost of our package is estimated at 3-4 million, this is dollars an insignificant amount for us that will not solve the problem, it is not fundamental.

"We have a publishing house" Salon-Press, "which brings money and in which we own 80%, but for us it is a non-core asset. We are building a multimedia company with a large share of Internet projects and new technologies. Businesses that have components of the Internet, telecom and technology are valued by investors and a market with a higher multiplier than traditional media. This gives a large growth rate even in the current unstable situation in the market. At the end of November, RBC reported for the third quarter and 9 months of 2011. Revenue from the Internet segment grew over the nine months of 2011 by more than 50% compared to the same period in 2010. Even with the current turbulent situation, we see that the Internet is growing. And the "Salon" for the same period growth amounted to only 5%. When consolidating the results, the average growth for the company is 32%. It turns out that the "Salon" pulls down. This publishing house is claimed by several buyers. It is clear that if sold two years ago, it would be possible to sell more. You can't guess that. You can not sell today, postpone for a year and get the situation even worse than now. "Salon" is a leader in its segment, many of the existing publishing houses make similar products in the segment of apartment design, but not everyone succeeds in implementing successful projects. Salon-Press has historically occupied this niche and is confidently leading, taking, according to our estimates, about 50% of the advertising market in this segment. Many competitors want to acquire such an asset in order to strengthen. The complexity of the transaction is in detail, primarily in the price for which we are ready to part with this asset "(December 20, 2011, executive director of the Onexim group Sergey Lavrukhin^[23]

• The exchange of shares of OJSC RBC Information Systems for shares of OJSC RBC was completed;

• Shares of OJSC "RBC" are transferred to the quotation list "B";

• 5 RBC executives were among the best in the media business in the annual Top 1000 Russian Managers ranking.

2010

Fridman, Usmanov and Chemezov discuss RBC purchase

Lenders began looking for buyers; the owners did the same. In this capacity, the head of Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman, the owner of Kommersant Publishing House Alisher Usmanov and even the head of Russian Technologies Sergei Chemezov, whom Kaplun allegedly met, were discussed.

The real buyer was Mikhail Prokhorov. According to one version, he was convinced by the then general director of RBC Yury Rovensky; according to another, Prokhorov was strongly recommended to purchase the asset by his longtime acquaintance Chemezov^[24].

Polyus Gold receives 11.43% in the parent company RBC

In February 2010, OJSC Pole Gold"" announced the acquisition of a stake in the parent company of RBC Holding. As follows from the message, Polyus Gold has been the owner of an 11.43% stake in RBC Information Systems since December 23, 2009. According to a source in the group ONEXIM Mikhail Prokhorov negotiating the acquisition of a controlling stake in the media holding, Polyus Gold became a shareholder of RBC, having received the assets of RBiznes Asset Management, which at the end of 2009 filed for its own bankruptcy. "In fact, Polyus Gold was the owner of these assets. It's just that now they are returning to her possession from trust management, "says another source close to the structures of Mikhail^[25].

"RBiznes Asset Management" after the division of the assets of Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Prokhorov went to Mr. Prokhorov, but in early 2009 he sold the company to its top management. RBiznes managed the assets of Polyus Zolota, but suffered losses and filed for bankruptcy on December 22, 2009. Even earlier, in November 2009, the Moscow Arbitration Court decided to recover 4.858 billion rubles from RBiznes in favor of Polyus Zolota. losses as a result of ineffective management. The gold mining company was the largest creditor of RBiznes, another 1.35 billion rubles. non-state pension funds Blagosostoyanie, Transneft and Norilsk Nickel demanded from the company.

A source close to RBC believes that the change of shareholder will have a positive effect on the restructuring process. "One lender is less," he explains.

In mid-February 2010, RBC's capitalization amounted to 4.8 billion rubles. Based on this estimate, 11.4% of the shares were worth 548 million rubles.

Debt restructuring of $235 million

On April 2, 2010, it became known that about half of RBC's creditors signed agreements on the restructuring of its debt of $230-240 million. Just the day before, the Arbitration Court Moscow lifted the arrest from the company's key assets. The group of creditors included,, Alfa-Bank, and credit MDM Bank Deutsche Bank Gazenergoprombank note holders CLN Recovery Ltd. This was confirmed by Anton Kiryukhin, director of the MDM Bank department, and representatives of other banks declined to comment. According to Kiryukhin, the "initiative group" accounts for about 50% of RBC's debt, which is estimated at $230-240 million at^[19]

Under the terms of the restructuring, half of the debt will be converted into five-year bonds with a yield of 7% per annum, and the other half - in eight-year bonds at 6%. Those who agree to such conditions will pay another 5% of the debt in money. This option was adopted, in particular, by MDM Bank, Kiryukhin said. Creditors who are not ready to wait so long are invited to receive part of the second half of the debt in money, and write off the balance. In addition, creditors will receive options on RBC shares: for the first half of the debt, 200 shares for each $1000 principal debt, and for the second - from 200 to 442 shares, depending on the option chosen.

RBC plans to sign similar agreements with other creditors by the end of April 2010 and complete the restructuring in two months. RBC-TV Moscow CJSC will issue new bonds and options, in which RBC's main assets will be concentrated.

The Moscow Arbitration Court lifted the arrest of these assets, his press secretary Dmitry Tafintsev told Vedomosti. The security was withdrawn at the request of Polyus Gold. 35% of Polyus Gold shares belong to Prokhorov and the company did not object to restructuring, says a source in Onexim. And the investment director of Onexima, Vladimir Pakhomov, added that the removal of arrests is a necessary condition for closing the deal.

On June 2, RBC will begin to pay,[1] RBC managers of two banks, creditors of the holding, ^[26] Vedomosti. According to one of them, the calculations should be completed before the end of the week, the other reminds that each has an individual calculation schedule. A manager at a third lender bank says the likelihood of completing a debt swap deal by the end of the week is "high."

RBC's debt is about $230 million. For half of the debt, creditors will receive five-year loan notes at a rate of 7% per annum. Simultaneously with their repayment in 2015, creditors will receive the difference between the market price of RBC shares and the price of $2. Creditors could choose the form of repayment of the second half of the debt - either eight-year bonds at 6% per annum with the same option, or 20-28.5% of the entire debt with money at once, and 21.5-30% is written off. Finally, RBC will pay an additional 5% of the total debt to all creditors immediately as compensation for patience. The manager of one of the creditor banks says most preferred the first, paper, option.

The restructuring agreement was signed or agreed to be signed by more than 90% of bondholders and almost all creditor banks, say managers of RBC, Onexima and creditor banks.

As soon as RBC's debts are restructured, Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim group should acquire a 51% stake in RBC's new parent company, RBC-TV Moscow, for $80 million. The condition was agreement to restructure 85% of bondholders and all banks, and that condition is now almost met.

Almost - because it remains unclear whether the Bank of Moscow will join the restructuring, to which RBC owes $17 million and at whose suit the Nicosia District Court in April 2009 arrested RBC's assets in Cyprus (including EDI Press, it controls the Salon Press publishing house).

Mikhail Prokhorov gains control of RBC for $80 million

Mikhail Prokhorov's group Onexim became the owner of a controlling stake in RBC-TV CJSC, the Moscow parent company of RBC Holding. The deal amounted to 80 million. dollars Oneksim acquired a 51.1% stake in the company. The remaining 48.9 percent of the shares of CJSC will be distributed among the owners of RBC Information Systems OJSC, the former parent company of RBC. Prokhorov's stake in RBC-TV Moscow will exceed 51.1 percent, since his Polyus Gold company already owns about 11.5 percent of RBC Information Systems shares. The Onexim group does not plan to change the management of RBC.

The distribution of the shares of the shareholders of the parent company before the deal with Oneksim looked like this,%:

• Herman Kaplun, Belik Dmitry Gelevich, Morgulchik Alexander (19.85)
• Unicredit Securities (8,87)
• Pole gold (11.5)
• Row Price International Funds (5,6)
• Lukin Sergey 0.36
• Inyutin Artem 0.3

On September 27, 2010, RBC-TV Moscow OJSC announced the completion of the transaction with Braddy S.A., which owns the Internet portal iGlobe.ru. As a result of this transaction, RBC acquired a 25% stake in one of the largest online booking resources for hotels and air tickets. Negotiations to conclude a deal between RBC and Brady S.A. began in 2008, but the process ended only in September 2010.

2009: Default and debt restructuring

Negotiations with creditors

On January 15, 2009, RBC in the office of its financial adviser UBS makes an offer to creditors for debt restructuring. At that time, RBC's total debt was $235 million. All debt was proposed to be exchanged for two tranches of Eurobonds with repayment in 2010 and 2012, taking into account 80% discount on debt. For the securities of the first tranche, investors could receive coupons in the amount of 10% per annum, the securities of the second tranche should have become couponless. As compensation for such unfavorable conditions, the owners of new securities were offered on the date of their repayment in 2010 and 2012 to convert the debt into a 30% stake in RBC. In response, investors demanded a 90 percent stake in the business, valuing the holding at $50 million, while shareholders insisted on a valuation of $160 million. At the same time, RBC co-owners told creditors that the company has $11 million in available funds, but by February 11, 2009 this money should end.

In mid-February 2009, RBC and UBS sent their creditors a formalized proposal for debt restructuring, a source in RBC told Kommersant. Now RBC offered to issue Eurobonds in the amount of $216 million, an employee of one of the creditor banks confirmed to Kommersant. The media holding promised to pay off not 20% of the debt, but all 100%: 20% will be repaid in 2012, and the remaining 80% in 2019. The coupon rate on RBC Eurobonds will be 5% per annum, and payments on the coupon will begin only in 2010. The new agreement, unlike the previous one, did not imply the entry of creditors into the company's share capital, but the agreed creditors will be able to participate in the audit commission to check the financial condition of RBC until 2019, a source told Kommersant.

"Give us free money for ten years," a representative of one of the creditor banks commented on RBC's proposal to

Kommersant.

Chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC Herman Kaplun did not comment on the new scheme. "We are actively working and communicating with creditors," the businessman was concise. A source in RBC's top management said that oral agreements were reached with the largest creditors on the restructuring issue, but the documents were not signed.

"It

could take about two months," he revealed. - Now the company has money, until the end of the month it will definitely be enough. The next repayment of bonds will take place in March. "

Meanwhile, creditors have already begun to file lawsuits against RBC. According to the website of the arbitration court, Moscow the lawsuit was filed by The Royal Bank of Scotland, the amount of claims amounted to 5.17 million rubles. The general director of RBC Yury Rovensky claims that he does not yet know anything about the claim. In December 2008, RBC was supposed to repay credit notes (CLN) in the amount of $45 million, but did not do so. According to market participants, I bought a "significant part" of the issue. BM-Bank Russia Another issue of credit notes in the amount of $100 million, of which $43.5 million are in circulation, was to be repaid in June 2009 (default was declared); the buyer of a large package of these securities was. MDM Bank RBC also issued two bond issues in the amount of 3 billion rubles: 1.5 billion rubles. of which had to be repaid in March 2009 (declared default), the rest - in July (declared default).

Interros is ready to buy out an additional issue of RBC

In April, Interros announced that it was ready to buy back an additional issue of RBC shares for $90 million, after which 41% of the debt will be paid to creditors in money, another 36% will be written off, and bonds for three and five years will be issued for 23% of the debt. The total debt of RBC Interros was estimated at about $220 million.

At the same time, the Nicosia District Court satisfied the Bank of Moscow's demand for the arrest of RBC property under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Cyprus, a manager of one of RBC's creditor banks told Vedomosti. According to him, this is an interim measure on the claim of the Bank of Moscow against the media holding, which was filed in March with the London International Arbitration Court. This information was confirmed by a source in RBC itself, without specifying the details.

According to RBC on January 1, 2009, she had several Cypriot "daughters," including EDI S Press. This group, registered in Limassol, controls a number of companies publishing and distributing Russia in and to To Ukraine the magazines Ideas of Your Home, Interior Store, Interior Salon, etc. According to RBC's 2007 financial statements, in IFRS 2007 the fair value of EDI S Press assets was estimated at $14 million.

In Nicosia, two other RBC subsidiaries are registered - RBC Investments (Cyprus) Ltd. and Ad Net Ltd. The first in June 2006 borrowed $100 million from Dresdner Bank - this loan became collateral for credit notes (CLN) placed a month earlier. In 2008, RBC repaid most of this loan ahead of schedule - $56 million, the rest will be repaid in June 2009.

According to a similar scheme, RBC Investments borrowed $45 million from Barclays Capital Bank in December 2007, issuing CLN on the security of this loan (Ad Net was one of the guarantors). It was necessary to repay these securities in November 2008, but RBC agreed with Barclays on a "temporary extension of the maturity period." She did not disclose new maturities. The Bank of Moscow is a large holder of this issue of CLN and its claims are related to the repayment of securities, according to the managers of two large creditors of RBC.

RBC in the top three Runet leaders: audience of 14.4 million people

According to TNS measurements, the Russian audience of RBC's 20 Internet projects amounted to 14.4 million people in April 2009. About 4 million users visited pochta.ru, readme.ru and dating services at least once a month loveplanet.ru. The rbc.ru news portal gathered 3.8 million visitors, smotri.com video hosting - 2.7 million, the website of the RBC Daily newspaper - 744,500.

The total audience of RBC introduces it into the top three largest portals of Runet. Of all the portals measured by TNS, only Yandex (18.9 million) and Mail.ru (18.8 million) have higher attendance.

More than 1/3 of RBC's audience (5 million users) falls on the site qip.ru. The QIP messenger is downloaded from this site - a communication program similar to ICQ and even using its protocol. According to Finam, the audience of the messenger itself is about 10 million people; this is only slightly less than the ICQ (11 million), which appeared nine years earlier.

May 2009 - Capital Management Company filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court against RBC for 69.5 million rubles. The plaintiff accuses RBC of non-fulfillment of obligations to pay an annual coupon and offer on bonds. In March, RBC did not repay exchange-traded bonds for 1.5 billion rubles. and did not pay the annual coupon on them.

Until 31.07.2009, the proposal to restructure RBC's debt has been extended. Onexim buys 65% of the increased four times the capital for $35 million, RBC creditors receive 10%. They then get 8% of the debt and write off 45% (or 65%) and roll over the balance for seven years (for three years)

June 2009 - On June 11, the Board of Directors of RBC Information Systems (RBC IS) approved five transactions that turn the parent company of the media holding into a minority shareholder of two self-sufficient asset groups with a looped ownership scheme. In particular, as follows from the minutes of the meeting, the council unanimously decided to sell 51% of the shares of RBC Media LLC (published by the RBC Daily newspaper) to its 90% subsidiary, ID Our Money LLC, for 25 million rubles. At the same time, the sale of 80% of RBC Holding CJSC to its 99% subsidiary, TVR Production LLC, was approved for 40,000 rubles. (Vedomosti has a copy of the protocol).

As a result, two ring structures were created, which received permission from the RBC IS board to buy 100% of RBC-TV, which controls the channel of the same name (for 178 million rubles), 80% of RBC advertising (for 8000 rubles) and 80% of Rosbusinessconsulting, which controls the news agency of the same name (for 27,000 rubles). At least four of these five transactions have already taken place, it follows from the information on the RBC website (the holding has not yet announced a deal with the participation of RBC advertising).

Independent directors Hans-Jörg Rudloff, Michael Hammond and Neil Osborne did not attend this meeting. The decision was made by RBC founders Herman Kaplun, Alexander Morgulchik and Dmitry Belik, RBC IS CEO Yury Rovensky, as well as RBC IS board member Artemy Inyutin and owner of a 0.36% stake in RBC Sergey Lukin.

As a result of five transactions in the amount of only 203.08 million rubles. ($6.5 million at the current rate) RBC IS ceased to control the main media assets. Although it remains the defendant for all debts (about $220 million, including 3 billion rubles. obligations on bonds). Negotiations on the restructuring of this debt are still underway, Kaplun told Vedomosti on Friday.

Kaplun did not comment on the transactions as a result of which RBC IS lost control over assets: "It is too early, the final version of the restructuring has not been agreed."

For managers of Raiffeisen Bank and MDM Bank (large creditors of RBC), such a reorganization scheme is "not a secret." There is a risk that now creditors will not be able to receive RBC assets as collateral, admits Anton Kiryukhin, director of the MDM Bank department, but everything will depend on RBC's further actions. A representative of another lender, the Bank of Moscow, declined to comment.

A minority shareholder of RBC, Rosbank Management Company (owns 11.43% of RBC IS), who has long suspected the company of trying to withdraw assets, is much more concerned. Transactions approved by the RBC council on June 11 - transactions with an interest and only independent directors had to vote, Vladislav Bessarabov, general director of Rosbank Management Company, is sure. And if you prove in court that the transactions took place according to an underestimation, they can be declared invalid - after all, large transactions should be approved by the meeting of shareholders, he continues. Rosbank promises to decide on the actions of the Criminal Code this week.

There are signs of interest in transactions between the parent company and the "granddaughter," agrees Yuri Dobronravov, partner of the law firm Dobronravov & Partners; RBC IS CEO and board members, as interested parties, could not vote. It is realistic to recognize these transactions as invalid, he believes: it must be proved that their fair value exceeds 2% of the book value of RBC assets (as of March 31, 2009, 2% amounted to 186.3 million rubles). Assets withdrawn from RBC - RBC TV, Rosbusinesconsulting and RBC Daily - are key for the holding, says Julia Gordeeva from Deutsche Bank; their market value cannot be 19 times lower than the capitalization of the holding itself.

On June 29, the general director of RBC Information Systems, Yury Rovensky, announced that he was resigning. His resignation, as well as the appointment of a new CEO, will be considered at the board of directors, the date of the meeting of which has not yet been set. Yury Rovensky leaves RBC on July 1. Yury Rovensky moved to ONEXIM and will oversee the negotiation process for the restructuring of RBC from one of the shareholders.

July 2009

On July 8, RBC announced that it had previously agreed on debt restructuring with 50% of creditors. The scheme proposed to creditors provides for the division of debt into two parts - 25% and 75% - and their conversion into credit notes with repayment in 2012 and 2014, respectively. The yield on the first part of the securities may be 12.5% per annum, on the second - 15%. The main assets of the holding will act as collateral for new debts. Time for reflection - until July 21.

Kaplun does not name the creditors who approved these conditions. Vedomosti found only one thing - Absolut Bank. "We think, but we tend to agree," Anatoly Maksakov, deputy chairman of his board, said. Representatives of the remaining 13 largest creditors interviewed by Vedomosti did not even confirm prior consent. But the managers of the two banks said that at least five creditors do not agree with the terms of RBC - Alfa-Bank (in addition to $41.8 million, it collects 253.8 million rubles through the court on bonds), Bank of Moscow (Kaplun estimated the debt to him at $17 million), Rosbank Management Company ($9 million on credit notes and 135 million rubles on bonds), Raiffeisen Bank (bonds worth 109 million rubles) and Royal Bank of Scotland (5.2 million rubles). The total amount of RBC's obligations to them is about $83.5 million. The general director of Rosbank Management Company Vladislav Bessarabov and the manager of Alfa Bank confirmed their disagreement with the proposed scheme, the Bank of Moscow declined to comment, and the other two banks could not be contacted.

Chairman of the Board of Barclays Bank Hans-Jorg Rudloff (this bank RBC owes $19 million) has not yet seen the final proposal of RBC. Capital Management Company (about $7 million) is also not among those who agreed, added company analyst Fedor Naumov. Thus, undecided or dissenting accounts for $109.5 million, or almost half of RBC's debt. With many of them there are "positive dynamics" in the negotiations, assures Kaplun.

Business plan

The company plans to reduce the share of print media in its business. Only two print publications are supposed to be preserved - the RBC Daily newspaper and the RBC magazine. According to G. Kaplun, these publications are unlikely to be highly profitable, but they will quite well fulfill their task in the event of their break-even. The rest of the print editions are planned to be sold. In particular, the company intends to sell Salon magazines in 2010.

Debt burden

The total debt of RBC as of July 8, 2009, its CEO and co-owner Herman Kaplun estimates at $221.8 million, including:

• Alfa-Bank ($41.8 million on forward contracts and 253.8 million rubles on bonds),
• Barclays Bank ($19 million).
• BM-Bank Russia ($17 million),
• MC Rosbank ($9 million on credit notes and 135 million rubles on bonds),
• Capital Management Company (about $7 million)
• Raiffeisen Bank (bonds worth 109 million rubles)
• Royal Bank of Scotland (5.2 million rubles).

On July 17, the media reported that the Moscow Arbitration Court had seized assets that had recently belonged to RBC, and were withdrawn from the holding at the end of June. The seizure of assets was carried out after the Criminal Code of Rosbank filed lawsuits on the invalidity of five transactions, as a result of which RBC lost control over key assets, and demanded that they be returned to the balance sheet of RBC Information Systems. This complicates negotiations on the restructuring of RBC's debt of $220 million according to the scheme proposed by the company, and may open the way for a new proposal from Onexima.

On July 21, it was announced that the founders of RBC agreed to the proposal of Onexim. It is assumed that Onexim will pay $80 million for 51% of RBC's share capital increased during the additional issue and will receive a majority on the board of directors, and the operational management will remain the same. According to a source close to Onexim, half of the amount from the placement of new shares - $40 million - will go to pay off debts, the rest of the company will direct to development. It is proposed to write off about 30% of the debt, and restructure 50%, the source noted, without specifying details.

The deal between Onexim and RBC will enter into force if agreed by a "certain number of creditors," according to a joint press release. Another condition is the development of RBC's detailed business plan for 2009-2010 and the implementation of corporate and legal measures to restructure the business, increase its transparency and manageability. A source in the Onexim group told Vedomosti that a prerequisite for the transaction would also be a return to RBC's balance sheet of shares in subsidiaries that were withdrawn from the holding's control with the sanction of the board of directors.

On July 28, the Onexim group of Mikhail Prokhorov and RBC sent a proposal to the creditors of the holding to restructure its debt. Creditors are invited to convert half of the debt ($90 million) into five-year bonds of RBC or the "new holding company" at a rate of 7% per annum (in dollars). Restructuring the second half involves two options. Creditors can sell it for 36% of the face value, that is, get 18% of the debt at once, writing off another 32%. And banks and management companies that need a full return of invested funds can convert the second half of the debt into eight-year bonds also at a rate of 7% per annum and receive an additional 4% of the total debt.

Onexim's proposal was supported not only by managers - the founders of RBC, but by Unicredit Securities (17%) and Rosbank Management Company (11.5%), their representatives said. To conduct an additional issue, the consent of 75% of shareholders is necessary, about 55% have already agreed, a source close to one of the company's shareholders claims.

On July 29, it became known that the Arbitration Court refused Rosbank's Criminal Code in a lawsuit against RBC over the refusal to add their candidates to the list for voting on the board of directors at a shareholder meeting in April this year.

August 2009

On August 5, it became known that RBC's large creditors - Alfa Bank, MDM Bank and Bank of Moscow - do not agree with Onexima's offer to restructure the debts of the media holding. This proposal is "unreasonably bad," says the TKB manager (RBC owes him 171 million rubles on bonds). It is necessary to reduce the restructuring period or increase the rate and size of the first payment, as well as make Onexim a guarantor for new bonds, another creditor believes. In particular, MDM-Bank proposed to abandon write-offs, double the rate on five-year bonds, pay 30% of the debt at once, and convert 20% into RBC shares. A source close to Onexim confirms that banks are pushing for higher rates and guarantees. But the group will not go to drastic changes, he warns.

In the new version of Onexima, which became known on August 25, 2009, the volume of first payments was increased and security was proposed for all bonds in the form of subsidiary shares, which generate at least 85% of the holding's income, two lenders told Vedomosti. In the July proposal of Mikhail Prokhorov's group, RBC's subsidiaries acted only as bond guarantors. Onexim also offers creditors to immediately receive 25% of the debt in money (when a number of conditions are fulfilled), writing off another 25%. "Onexim" took into account the wishes of creditors as much as possible, his manager notes, new modifications should not be expected. This offer expires Aug. 28.

September

On September 1, Onexim submitted a new offer to creditors. The new proposal has several digital differences from the previous one sent out a week ago. The bond rate remained the same (7%), but options in the form of "phantom" shares of RBC were added to it, bankers told Vedomosti. About 15% of RBC shares will be allocated for these purposes, one of them knows. Creditors are actually offered participation in the growth of RBC's capitalization, explains another creditor: they will receive the difference between the current value of the holding's securities (the last transaction with RBC shares in RTS took place on July 28 at $1.05 apiece) and the future price - upon reaching a certain level. The option can be exercised at $2 per share, clarifies another creditor. It will be possible to get the difference at the end of the bond circulation period, and resell options, other Vedomosti interlocutors say.

The size of the first payments and write-offs has also changed. Previously, Onexim offered to immediately pay 18% (another 32% is written off) or 25% (25% is written off) - the latter is possible if holders of no more than 65% of the second half of the debt (no more than $67.275 million) would speak in favor. Now the group is ready to pay from 20% to 28.5% (with a write-off of 30% and 21.5%, respectively), the condition for 65% remains, that is, money will be paid from $38.3 million to $41.4 million (previously - from $33.6 million to $37.3 million). Another change is to increase the size of the first payments to those who agreed to eight-year bonds from 8% to 10% of the second half of the debt.

The last proposal of Onexim significantly brings the positions of the negotiators closer together, says Vladimir Potapov, investment manager of Troika Dialog Management Company (a major creditor of RBC), and if it is supported by other creditors and shareholders of RBC, Troika Dialogue Management Company will join them. Chairman of the Board of Barclays Bank Hans-Jorg Rudloff (this bank accounts for about $20 million of RBC debt) stressed that his bank has already actually agreed: "This is a good and honest proposal that takes into account the interests of creditors, as well as the company's ability to pay off debts - and restructuring should be carried out." A source close to Alfa Bank only confirmed the fact of negotiations with Onexim.

Other creditors call the last proposal of Mikhail Prokhorov's group sane and speak of a fundamental readiness to accept its terms. A source close to Onexim claims that almost everyone agreed and this week may be able to complete the restructuring. But among those who disagree are Vnesheconombank (202.3 million rubles) and the Bank of Moscow (about $17 million), which account for about 11% of the debt, he stipulates.

On September 24, it became known that RBC filed a lawsuit against Alfa Bank with the Moscow Arbitration Court to invalidate the court decision. We are talking about the decision of the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which confirmed the bank's claims against RBC for $28 million, sources close to both sides say.

On September 25, a Kommersant source in Raiffeisen Bank said that the bank received a writ of execution for the recovery of 108.8 million rubles. from ^[18]. ONEXIM Investment Director Vladimir Pakhomov, who is engaged in a deal to restructure RBC's debts, knows about this, but is not aware of what Raiffeisen Bank intends to do now.

Raiffeisen Bank filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court to recover 108.8 million rubles from RBC on exchange-traded bonds on April 30 this year. We are talking about bonds issued in March 2008 (the nominal value of the issue is 1.5 billion rubles, the size of the coupon is 12.25% per annum): on March 24 of this year, RBC was supposed to repay the entire issue, but did not. On July 2, the court satisfied Raiffeisen Bank claim, but the defendant appealed to the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal with a complaint challenging the decision of the Moscow Arbitration Court. On September 2, the appellate court issued a ruling, which upheld the decision of the first court.

According to the website of the Moscow Arbitration Court, Royal Bank of Scotland has a decision to recover funds from the OJSC. On June 18 of this year, the court ruled that RBC-Information Systems OJSC, RBC-Center LLC and RBC-TV CJSC must pay the bank $5.23 million in loan.

Having received an executive list, the creditor may not collect the debt, but agree on restructuring. If a decision is made to recover, the creditor goes with a writ of execution either to the bailiff service or directly to the bank serving the borrower. "In this case, the bank will be obliged to transfer all funds received by the borrower to the creditor's account," explained Pavel Lambrov, a lawyer at the Lawyers of the Capital NPKA. He noted that if RBC refuses to voluntarily repay the debt, bailiffs are also likely to resort first to an acceptance-free write-off. "If there is not enough money, then the bailiffs can seize the property of the company, the further implementation of which will pay off the debt," added Mr. Lambrov.

RBC CEO Herman Kaplun believes that Raiffeisen Bank will not be able to return the money with the help of an executive sheet. "If I'm not wrong, this is the first executive list from our creditors. But in any case, a non-acceptance write-off will not give anything, since RBC-Information Systems OJSC is not an operating company, money can only come to its accounts from subsidiaries, "said Mr. Kaplun. He clarified that there are "some equipment and shares on the balance sheet of the OJSC that can be pledged."

According to the reporting of OJSC under RAS for the second quarter, the company's revenue amounted to 3.9 million rubles. At the same time, for the quarter, the company spent almost all the funds in the accounts: if at the beginning of the period it was 97.38 million rubles, then at the end of the period - only 26 thousand rubles. At the same time, at the end of the second quarter, OJSC had short-term financial investments in the amount of 509.8 million rubles on its balance sheet. Herman Kaplun added that the company is in the decisive stage of signing an agreement on debt restructuring. "The process has dragged on as there are many lenders and everyone has their own vision for restructuring. If we resolved the issue faster, the creditors would have already returned some of their money, "commented Mr. Kaplun.

A source in the top management of ONEXIM said: "We hope that upon receipt of the writ of execution, the process of compulsory collection of funds will not be initiated." "We have oral agreements with Raiffeisen Bank on debt restructuring, representatives of the bank have not yet refused them," added a source in ONEXIM.

RBC's capitalization at MICEX as of September 24, 2009 amounted to $172.28 million.

October

On October 1, 2009, Raiffeisen Bank filed for bankruptcy of RBC. But in the evening he promised to recall it.

On December 30, 2009, the meeting of RBC shareholders approved the transfer of the holding's intra-group debt to Pintoleza Holdings and RBC-TV Moscow. It was announced that obligations to creditors will be repaid by securities issued by RBC-TV and Pintoleza.

According to the RBC report for the fourth quarter of 2009, the founders of the media holding Herman Kaplun, Dmitry Belik and Alexander Morgulchik own a total of 19.85% of the shares of the parent company, UniCredit Bank Austria - 16.64%, "RBiznes Asset Management" - about 11.5%^[25].

2007: Purchase of Our Money magazine and the Square Meter newspaper, launch of Smotri.com

In early October 2007, RBC Information Systems bought 89.99% of the shares of Our Money magazine from KIT Finance and 100% of the shares of the newspaper M ² - Square Meter from Rodionov Publishing House.

In 2007, the online video site was launched Smotri.com.

2003: Launch of RBC TV

In 2003, RBC-TV was launched, which is considered the country's first business channel.

Herman Kaplun, founder of the company, until April 2012 - CEO of RBC (September 2012):

"We would never promote television (RBC TV. - Approx. ed.) From scratch, if there were no Internet. Because initially, of course, there was a tiny audience, but the guests walked. A person sees himself, he is beautiful, and wrote on the RBC website: "As he said on the air of RBC TV, he had a feeling that everyone knew about him. Everyone knew about him from the Internet, but he had a feeling that everyone knew about his interview from the TV. Therefore, people began to come to television, began to watch it. "

2000: CNews Edition Launch

In August 2000, an online publication on information technology began work CNews.ru.

1998: Breakthrough on the Internet

Herman Kaplun, founder of the company, until April 2012 - CEO of RBC (September 2012):

In

1996-1997, a lot of Internet companies tried to do something. The audiences were funny then. We had thousands of eight people a day, while competitors had thousands of four, that is, there was a gap, but funny. Financial information, of course, was very important, but textual information was more important. Russia In dominated the model of subscription to news agencies, in the West, free distribution of information began to dominate. And this change in technology: what works for 100 people - does not work for a thousand; what works for a thousand - breaks at 10 thousand. We were the only ones who were technologically ready. When the 1998 crisis happened, we just made such an emergency decision: we opened our free news feeds. Paid information was made free. We were the only source of information at that moment on the Internet - and everyone broke down to us. And our audience has grown from eight thousand to 150-200 thousand a day, such a giant leap.

We've

always had a concept against the rest of the market. We were building a media factory. Not a creative workshop, not a creative studio, but a plant that should have a well-oiled production. Creative could be in strategy, in business, in development. In our opinion, the media business is quite standardized. One journalist writes remarkably, the other bad - it equalizes the situation. Maybe you don't get stellar five-plus articles, but it's not fiction. But you do not get articles below four. You have an understandable quality.

Many considered the Internet to be pampering, something strange. Here the newspaper is a real thing, so many said. Everyone thought it was some kind of bloated bubble. Indeed, there was a bubble in America in 2000, if you remember.

The factory came and said: here I am a factory, I cost two million dollars, I make a supersite worth 30 thousand dollars, there you can order any candy with delivery - and now I am an Internet company, I cost 25 million dollars. That is, there were very few disassembled: you could simply say "Internet" and automatically increase the cost estimate several times. There was a huge amount of husk around normal companies. The dot-com crisis of 2000 greatly affected - there is no more Internet business, all this is nonsense. We've been trying to raise money since 2000, we couldn't finance the company alone. We felt it^[27]

January 1998 - The number of RBC clients exceeded 2000 companies.

June 1, 1998 - RosBusinessConsulting offers its clients a forecast of financial markets based on Elliott waves.

June 30, 1998 - RosBusinessConsulting offers free access to its new product - Currency Converter.

July 1, 1998 - RIA RosBusinessConsulting took 3rd place in the competition held by the Federal Security Commission of Russia to choose the methodology for calculating the stock index, which will officially be used by the Federal Commission.

August 18, 1998 - Telerate Information Company (formerly Dow Jones Markets) and RIA RosBusinessConsulting signed a partnership and cooperation agreement

October 1, 1998 - The number of calls to the RosBusinessConsulting server exceeded 3 million.

October 29, 1998 - For the first time in Russia, the cash currency market is on-line.

1997: RBC server traffic exceeded 1000 calls per day

In August 1997, the RIA RBC financial and stock news feed was created.

In November 1997, the rating systems of the Rambler and INFOART servers recorded more than 1000 average daily calls to Homepage of the RBC server. This is the best result among Russian news agencies.

1996: Broadcast of RTS trading on the Internet

October 1996 - Calculation of RBC stock index started.

November 1996 - The first Russian official information on-line system was created, broadcasting the course of trading from Russian trading platforms on the Internet (the course of trading in the RTS).

December 1996 - Embedded technical analysis of information from marketplaces.

1995: The first website among Russian news agencies

February 1995 - RBC established a regional correspondent network.

May 1995 - RosBusinessConsulting was the first Russian news agency to create its own Internet server.

September 1995 - RBC created an English version of the Internet server.

October 1995 - An agreement was signed with the Central Bank of the Russian Federation on the disclosure of information on Russian banks.

December 1995 The number of clients of the agency "RosBusinessConsulting" exceeded 1000 companies. RBC allocated the "Bill Market" in a separate information and analytical base and bulletin.

1994: Establishment of a News Service and Analytics Department

February 1994 - Due to an increase in stock market information from the bulletin "Information. Analysis. Comments. "the bulletin" Stock Market "is highlighted.

March 1994 - RBC set up an analytical department.

May 1994 - An agreement is signed with the TENFORE international system to share information.

June - July 1994 - Creation of RBC News Service.

September 1994 - RBC established a branch in St. Petersburg.

1993: Founding of the Company and News Agency

Herman Kaplun and Alexander Morgulchik created RBC on June 17, 1993, later Dmitry Belik became the third shareholder.

May 1993 - the first issue of the currency and credit bulletin "Information. Analysis. Comments. " Creation of RosBusinessConsulting news agency.

June 1993 - Created its own electronic version of currency and financial information.

July 1993 - RBC created an archive service. Started providing archived information.

December 1993 - The first issue of the financial analytics bulletin "Results of the Week" is issued.

Herman Kaplun, founder of the company, until April 2012 - CEO of RBC (September 2012):

"Until 1998, RosBusinessConsulting was purely a news agency, like a little Reuters, that just lived on a subscription: it printed ballots and transmitted them through the BBS (Bulletin board system, a system for communication. - Approx. ed.); faxed rates of the Central Bank, exchange rates, forecasts, comments. Reuters and Bloomberg are giant companies, selling specialty packages mostly to big banks. For a small ordinary person, there were no products. We gave rise, for example, to cash courses - that is, we reported them first when there were no mobile phones. I know that some people did as follows: when the rates fluctuated, they stood near exchange offices] with cash rubles and currency, where there was a payphone nearby, called RBC, were the first to try to find out the rate. If the course jumped, they tried to do some kind of operation.

Notes