Putin allowed to privatize Channel One

Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which the state's share in Channel One could drop below 51%, and non-state shareholders could gain control. The largest of them is Yuri Kovalchuk's National Media Group.

The text of the decree is posted in the legal system "ConsultantPlus", drew attention the industry magazine "Bulletin of the film distributor" to it. At the time of publication of the news, the decree had not yet been published on the official portal of legal information and on the website of the president.

By decree, Putin allows the government to reduce the share of the Russian Federation in Channel One JSC to 34%. It follows from Putin's decree that the JSC will carry out an additional issue of shares, which will be sold to non-state shareholders. The additional issue must take place within three months from the date of publication of the decree dated December 21.

Now the state directly (through the Federal Property Management Agency) owns 38.9% of Channel One, another 9.1% of the shares belong to FSUE ITAR-TASS, 3% belongs to FSUE Ostankino. If the share of the Federal Property Management Agency drops to 34%, this means that the volume of the additional issue will be 12.8%. If we assume that the share of both federal state unitary enterprises will also be diluted, then the state's effective share in Channel One will drop to 44.6%. But the state, having lost control, will receive a "golden share," Putin's decree says.

29% of Channel One is controlled by the structures of the National Media Group (NMG). The remaining 20% ​​of the shares since 2019 belonged to the state bank VTB, but at the end of September 2020 they were sold to an unknown owner. Sources of RBC and Vedomosti in the media market then claimed that they could return to Roman Abramovich.

The Bell requested comments from Channel One.

Updated

The release of Putin's decree was later confirmed to RBC by the press service of the Ministry of Digital Development, announcing the appointment of Maxim Oreshkin, aide to the president and former minister of economic development, as chairman of the board of directors of Channel One. The department explained the increase in the authorized capital of the channel and the appointment of Oreshkin by the "need for financial recovery." “Such a high level of state representation on the company’s board of directors is additional confirmation of the fact that Channel One is still one of the state’s key media assets,” the ministry said.

Find out more

For several years, Channel One has been experiencing difficulties. In 2018, the revenue of Channel One amounted to 32.8 billion rubles, the loss on sales was 13.1 billion, the net loss was 6.8 billion. In 2019, the revenue decreased to 27 billion rubles, the net loss amounted to 4.1 billion. The media have repeatedly written that Channel One delays payments to partners. We talked about the causes of these problems here .