Media business

The Prof-Media holding will be purchased by Vladimir Potanin's Interros group for cash, the board of directors of the KM Invest fund, which manages the joint investments of Vladimir Potanin and Mikhail Prokhorov, decided yesterday. Prof-Media is valued at $1.8 billion, but Interros will pay KM Invest a little less, since part of the shares (according to Kommersant information, 10%) will be allocated for the implementation of an option program for top management. KM Invest expects that the deal will be closed by the end of the year. Sergey Kommersant-Sobolev

Development

"Basel" expands construction in St. Petersburg

The Basic Element company and its partners - Russian and international corporations - will invest 480 billion rubles in the implementation of projects in St. Petersburg by 2015. The corresponding agreement was signed on Thursday by the Governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko and the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Basic Element Company LLC Oleg Deripaska. Both Basel and its subsidiaries, in particular Altius-Development and Glavstroy, will act as investors. The funds will be used mainly for the construction of affordable housing, as well as infrastructure, roads and bridges. Co-investors and partners of Basic Element will be Transstroy, Hochtief, Strabag, Egis, Bouygues. The main projects of "Basel" in the city are "Northern Valley" (economy class housing) and "Horse Lakhta" (low-rise residential complexes and apartment buildings). "Interfax"

Advertising business

Bayer will increase ADV turnover

The Universal McCann agency, part of the ADV group, was announced as the winner of the tender for the media service of the Bayer pharmaceutical holding. Previously, the Smart Communications agency (Video International group) was involved in planning campaigns and purchasing media advertising for Bayer. Experts estimate the budget of the pharmaceutical holding at $10 million. Over the past month, Universal McCann also won the media budgets of SUN InBev (about $60 million) and Conde Nast Publishing House (about $5 million). Sergey Kommersant-Sobolev

Gallery spent about $92 million on purchases.

Russia's second largest outdoor advertising operator, Gallery Group, paid $42.3 million for Moscow operators City Project and Gorod Media (118 surfaces in total), which own rooftop advertising installations in the city center, the company said in its quarterly reports. In total, the group spent $92 million on the acquisition of assets in Russia and Ukraine in the third quarter. In July of this year, Gallery raised $150 million by placing bonds and issuing an additional issue. The third quarter turned out to be the most successful for the company: its net profit in July-September amounted to $3.28 million versus $288 thousand in January-June. The group's revenue increased to $38.266 million (+98%), EBITDA - to $10.595 million (+158%). Timur Kommersant-Bordyug

Pharmaceutical business

TPG Capital buys Axcan

Investment fund TPG Capital and its affiliates have agreed to acquire Canadian biopharmaceutical company Axcan Pharma Inc. (AXCA) at $23.35 per share, or $1.3 billion per company, Axcan Pharma said in a statement. The proposed price represents a 28 percent premium to Axcan Pharma's closing share price on Wednesday. TPG Capital said the deal will be financed by shares of the fund and its subsidiaries, as well as through loans received from Bank of America and HSBC.

TPG Capital is also negotiating the purchase of more than 50% of SIA International, the largest pharmaceutical distributor in Russia. (see Kommersant dated October 16) Dow Jones, Irina Kommersant-Parfentyeva

Prof-Media is preparing an option program