"Poster" sold

The new investor relies on the online version of the magazine on Thursday, it became known that the company "Sputnik", which owned 100% of the shares of the Publishing House of Afisha, sold this media active to the prof-media holding. As soon as the appropriate permission is received from the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the transaction between the two investors will be completed.

Recall: in the middle of September last year, the co -owner of the Poster Publishing House Boris Yordan bought the share of his partners - the founder of the Publishing House of Poster Andrew Polson and Anton Kudryashov to become the only owner of the company. Then there were rumors about the desire of the Pubes Rodionov to buy a profitable publishing house. But the "poster" went to Yordan. Experts immediately suggested that the businessman is becoming a hundred percent owner of a large ID in order to concentrate all the shares of the company in his hands - this would be very convenient for resale. The head of the ID Rodionov Alexei Volin believes that the Izvestia sold in the summer of Gazprom last year were actually exchanged for the Afisha. “Prof-Media” is reproduced and leaves the segment of the socio-political press in the entertainment sphere, ”Aleksey Volin told Gazeta. “That is why for the“ Prof -Media ”the ID“ Poster ” - the acquisition is very profitable.”

The possible appearance of the “poster” of the new investor was spoke for a long time, but it was obvious that there would be few buyers for the money that its owner wanted to receive for the ID (20-25 million dollars). “Now there are only two players on the market who can spend money so generously,” Leonid Bershidsky Director for the Development of New Projects Development Director of New Projects. -This is the Publishing House of Rodionov and "Prof-Media." If the Afisha bought a serious Western holding, the amount would not exceed ten million. ”

It was not possible to find out the amount of the transaction from its participants-the company Sputnik and Prof-Media agreed on the complete confidentiality of the commercial details of the agreement. But the reasons forced the “prof-media” to acquire the “poster” are obvious. According to the director, according to information and public relations, Prof-Media Konstantin Vorontsov, the holding implements the development strategy in the entertainment segment and most of all the company attracted not so much the magazine as the online portal of Afisha.ru. “Thus, we get strong positions both in the glossy magazines market and in RuNet,” Konstantin Vorontsov explained the newspaper. There will be no change of top management to the ID "Poster". The fate of applications to the magazine and the publication “Big City” has not yet been decided: “Prof-Media” plans to develop a strategy for the development of the Publishing House “Poster” in the near future, in which we will talk about the further existence of the holding publications.

The emphasis of the new investor on the online portal "Afisha.ru" is not very pleasing to experts. “The Magazine“ Poster ”ruined himself with his own site,” Leonid Burshid explained. - They have a magnificent, commercially successful portal, which practically replaced the readers with a paper edition. Therefore, now the editorial office, which has an excellent creative and technical resource, must be re-profiled towards the Life-Steel of the publication. I don’t know if this is understood in “Prof-Media”. Earlier, all attempts by this company were not particularly successful. ”

01/19/2006 / Alina Rebel, the material was published in the "newspaper" No. 7 dated 01.20.2006.