Free Technologies Engineering STI

Free Technologies Engineering (STI) is a company created by a group of like-minded people with experience in the market for the design and construction of civil, industrial and special-purpose facilities.

History

2023: 5th place in the top 10 fastest growing IT companies in Russia

Free Technologies Engineering took 5th place in the top 10 fastest growing IT companies included in the ranking of the Largest IT Companies in Russia TAdviser100, prepared by TAdviser in June 2024 based on the companies' revenue for 2023. Read more here.

Data for 2023

2020: Key top managers involved in the creation of Sberbank's mega-data center left Lanit Group for their own business

A new player in the data center construction and engineering infrastructure services market

As TAdviser discovered, during 2020, a management team moved from Insystems, which is part of Lanit, to Free Engineering Technologies (STI). Evgeny Virzer, who headed Insystems since 2010, in January 2020 became the general director of the STI and received a 51% stake in it. Several management employees joined the company with him.

The STI clarified that Yevgeny Virzer has not been the general director of Insystems since November 2019, and since January 1, 2020 he has not worked at Lanit. The STI added that there was no centralized transition of employees from one company to another.

Evgeny Virzer (pictured right) returned to Lanit in 2010 at the invitation of George Gens (pictured in the center) and left it in 2020, when Lanit was already headed by his son Philip Gens (pictured left) "(photo - CNews)"

The remaining share in 49% of STI belongs to the legal entity "Free Technologies," which is half owned by Evgeny Virzer. Thus, directly and indirectly, it has 75.5% CTI. According to the database of legal entities Kontur.Fokus, "he became a co-owner of the company in March 2020.

And since June 2020, his former colleagues in Insystems have also been co-owners of Free Technologies. Shares in 10% of the company are owned by Georgy Virzer, former director of the Insystems technical department, Evgeny Koloskov, who worked as director of the design department, Yulia Dobrynina, ex-head of the commercial department.

A share of 10% also belongs to Ekaterina Temchenko. She worked at Insystems as a project manager, then head of department, and in 2018, along with a number of other employees, was awarded the departmental award of the Ministry of Digital Development for services to IT development and many years of work. At that time, the head of the department, Konstantin Noskov, presented gratitude and certificates of honor to them. ^[1]

Yulia Redko, the former head of the PR service of Insystems, and Yulia Danilova, who worked as a personal assistant to Yevgeny Virzer, have 5% each in Free Technologies.

STI is a new company: it was formed in 2019, as well as Free Technologies, through which former Insystems employees own STI. On its website, STI is positioned as a company created by a group of like-minded people with many years of experience and authority in the market for the design and construction of civil, industrial and special-purpose facilities.

Its specialization includes complex technological facilities saturated with engineering systems (data centers, energy centers, refrigeration centers), design with the full use of BIM technologies, construction of engineering systems, communication and safety systems.

The activities of STI are very similar to the activities of Insystems, which specializes in services for the design, construction and equipping with engineering and information systems of various facilities.

According to the database of legal entities Kontur.Fokus, "before the arrival of the new owners, the founder of STI and" Free Technologies "was Aleksei Hitrov. Previously, he was the general director and member of a number of businesses related to electrical and related work. And since April 2020, Hitrov has been a co-owner of Intora-Engineering, which has 27 types of activities, including electrical installation work, construction and installation work, installation of industrial machines and equipment, etc.

The section "Our Experience" on the STI website says that its team took part in the creation of Sberbank's mega-data center in Skolkovo, carried out construction and installation work at the Amur GPP, construction, installation and commissioning work at the Yakutsk GRES-2 and in a number of other projects. All these projects were implemented directly by Insystems or with its participation. For example, when creating the Sberbank data center in Skolkovo, Lanita's subsidiary was a general contractor.

Sberbank data center in Skolkovo is one of the most significant projects in which Insystems took part

The API brought TAdviser a list of projects that their company has in operation as of November 2020. It includes IstraDigital data center, commercial data center in the north of Moscow, two corporate data centers in Moscow and Bryansk, Arkus-4 BC, Vostochny cosmodrome, Kutuzovsky IFC, 32.

Some of the current STI projects overlap with Insystems projects. For example, IstraDigital data center. In 2019, Insystems and Istradijital entered into a cooperation agreement with the aim of building and developing the infrastructure of the Istradigital digital mega-complex in the Istra district of the Moscow region. But, according to TAdviser, as a result, Insystems did not work at this facility.

Insystems took part in the construction of the Vostochny cosmodrome, where, together with Lanit-Partner, it completed work at key facilities. The STI noted that at the cosmodrome they worked on various objects.

According to Kontur. Focus, in addition to STI Free Technologies, it is a co-founder of two more legal entities - it owns a share of 24.5% in Flysound and a share of 32.5% in the Center for Collective Use of Cloud Computing and Service (CCP).

Flysound, which is controlled by a Portuguese legal entity, is positioned as an international production and post-production sound company for film, television, music, advertising and other tasks. And at the Central Control Center, the second co-owner is Mercury Construction Management Region, which belongs to the same owners as Mercury Construction Management, which was a subcontractor for the construction of Sberbank's mega-data center in Skolkovo. With Mercury Construction Management in October 2020, Insystems began to sue.

New life "Insystems" with another management

Eugene Virzer came to Lanit in 1995 at the age of 19. In 2003, he left there and developed his own business for six years. At Insystems, he got a job at the suggestion of the founder of Lanit, Georgy Gens: "Georgy Vladimirovich offered me to sell his company to Lanit and integrate into Insystems together with his company," said Virzer^[2]. The proposal was accepted, Evgeny Virzer took the post of general director of Insystems.

George Gens, in an interview with TAdviser he gave in the spring of 2018, about a month before his death, called Eugene Wirzer "an effective and cool leader."

Eugene Wirzer headed Insystems for ten years. During this time, the company has grown dramatically and new tasks have arisen: building optimal business processes, as well as switching to new models of project management and project financing. To solve these problems, a new top team was invited, and Evgeny Virzer decided to develop his own business, - said TAdviser in Lanit.

Since the appointment of Wirzer to the post of general director, Insystems's revenue has shown mainly growth, with a special jump in 2017 - from 2.6 billion to almost 15 billion rubles due to large projects, including the creation of Sberbank's data center in Skolkovo. In 2018, revenue amounted to about 11.2 billion rubles, after which it returned to its former order. At the end of 2019, the turnover was approximately 3.8 billion rubles. At the same time, the company was in a loss of 1 billion rubles, according to data on financial reporting on the resource of the Federal Tax Service. Lanit explained to TAdviser that the loss of 2019 is associated with the completion of large projects and the resulting decrease in revenue.

Lanit also noted that as of the end of 2020, Insystems has no external debt on loans and borrowings. Financing of the company's activities is carried out at the expense of its own funds of the Lanit Group of Companies.

The number of new concluded state contracts at Insystems in 2019 also decreased significantly - there were 2 against 9 in 2018. And in 2020, the company has so far concluded only one state contract, follows from the base "Kontur. Focus."

The staff of Insystems has also decreased: according to the Federal Tax Service, in 2019 the average number of employees was more than 1.6 thousand people, and one of the company's news in 2020 already refers to more than 1.3 thousand employees. Lanit notes that such fluctuations in numbers are characteristic of construction organizations that attract ordinary construction personnel to perform a specific amount of work for projects (for fixed-term labor contracts).

Alexey Oreshnikov, who previously worked at Lanit-Integration, was appointed CEO of Insystems instead of the departed Yevgeny Virzer in April 2020. At the same time, Insystems is led by Managing Director Igor Permyakov, who has more than 15 years of experience in the field of IT, construction and engineering.

Lanit explained to TAdviser that the management structure at Insystems assumes that its activities are led by independently acting directors: Igor Permyakov is responsible for commercial and financial issues, and Alexey Oreshnikov is responsible for issues classified as state secrets.

In May 2020, President Vladimir Putin announced gratitude to the Insystems team for merits in the development of information technology and communications^[3]

Notes