The owner of Interros, Vladimir Potanin, is selling half of Rambler & Co to his partner in this Internet holding, Alexander Mamut, sources close to both businessmen told Vedomosti. According to them, the parties have agreed in principle, the deal should be concluded by the end of the year, its details are now being discussed. Potanin is exercising the option he received from Mamut when creating Rambler & Co. Representatives of Interros and Mamut declined to comment on the deal.

The businessmen combined their media assets in the spring of 2013: Potanin invested in Rambler and Afisha, Mamut invested in the Soup company. Potanin's assets earned more and were worth more, but each of the partners received parity shares, and Mamut became the managing partner. In exchange for this, Potanin received the right after 2.5 years, if desired, to sell his share to Mamut at a fixed price - $295 million. The option expires this December, follows from documents on the transaction published in 2013 on the Profmedia website (this the holding united all of Potanin’s media assets).

Since the deal was fixed in dollars, in rubles the value of the option increased from 9.7 billion (this figure is indicated in Profmedia documents) to 18.1 billion ($295 million at the Central Bank exchange rate as of yesterday, December 14). The option will be exercised according to the conditions fixed in 2013; no special reservations are made due to the devaluation of the ruble, according to sources close to Potanin and Mamut.

Mamut's assets
Forbes magazine estimated Mamut's fortune at $2.4 billion. Shares in the gold mining company Polymetal could have brought him $46.2 million in dividends over three years, ACRA analyst Maxim Khudalov calculated....
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Mamut's assets

Forbes magazine estimated Mamut's fortune at $2.4 billion. Shares in the gold mining company Polymetal could bring him $46.2 million in dividends over three years, ACRA analyst Maxim Khudalov calculated. He also owns 16% of the PIK group.

Mamut will pay for Rambler & Co with his own funds and will not take out bank loans, according to sources close to both businessmen. A source close to him does not disclose where the businessman got the free $295 million from. Previously, Vedomosti sources said that Mamut tried several times to negotiate with Potanin in order to reduce the payment for Rambler & Co or postpone the execution of the option.

The new company will take 3rd place in terms of audience size on the RuNet, Mamut promised when creating Rambler & Co, and will become “one of the leading providers of online services and the main source of information about socio-political, business, cultural and sporting events.” In 2013, this holding was the fifth; now, according to Mediascope (formerly TNS), Rambler & Co resources are used by 30.1 million Russian residents at least once a month (data on desktop computer users for October 2016). This is the fourth result among Internet holdings after Mail.ru Group, Yandex and Google. The gap between Google and Rambler & Co remains large: the monthly audience of the American company in Russia is 50.8 million people. The revenue of the Internet business "Profmedia" in 2012 amounted to 3 billion rubles, the revenue of "Soup" was not disclosed, Forbes magazine estimated the income of this company at $43 million. The combined Rambler & Co never disclosed its financial results and was always extremely stingy with disclosure of any business indicators. As in 2013, the basis of the business of this holding is the Rambler and Afisha portals, as well as the media (Gazeta.ru, Lenta.ru and the RNS news agency launched a year ago). The holding makes money primarily from advertising, as well as from selling cinema and concert tickets via the Internet. The top manager of a large Internet company is categorical: “I strongly doubt that Rambler & Co is profitable. Mamut receives part of her advertising budgets solely through personal connections, including with major officials. His media, according to my data, earned very good money in the State Duma elections.” The head of another media company, on the contrary, says that Mamut still managed to restore order in the holding and this business is growing well this year. Two Rambler & Co employees familiar with its financial results insist that the holding has been profitable for the last two years. A representative of Rambler & Co only said that over the past three years the revenue of this holding has doubled.

“It’s unlikely that Potanin could now sell a stake in Rambler & Co for almost twice as much as at the beginning of 2013. It’s not just the devaluation of the ruble, but also the crisis in the advertising market, the general disappointment of investors in the media business,” says the head of a large media company. . Otkritie analyst Alexander Vengranovich agrees that in this situation Potanin was lucky, but Mamut was not.

Sources at Interros previously explained to Vedomosti that Potanin had ceased to be interested in the media business several years ago, so he sold his assets in this area one after another: most of Profmedia was acquired by Gazprom-Media at the end of 2013, and the Cinema Park cinema chain was bought by Suleiman Kerimov’s son Said in 2014. After the sale of Rambler & Co, Potanin will only have a minority stake in the Ivi video service among his media assets.

Mamut's assets Forbes magazine estimated Mamut's fortune at $2.4 billion. Shares in the gold mining company Polymetal could have brought him $46.2 million in dividends over three years, ACRA analyst Maxim Khudalov calculated.... Read in full

Mamut's assets
Forbes magazine estimated Mamut's fortune at $2.4 billion. Shares in the gold mining company Polymetal could have brought him $46.2 million in dividends over three years, ACRA analyst Maxim Khudalov calculated....
Read in full

Mamut will pay another $295 million for the Internet holding Rambler&Co