Berezkin Grigory Viktorovich RBC. “We understand that such a deal as the sale of RBC cannot be completed without the close attention of the Kremlin.

The main contender for the purchase of RBC Grigory Berezkin, in an interview with the site, spoke about the purpose of the transaction and possible conflicts with the heroes of the materials and the authorities.

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Grigory Berezkin, photo TASS

Do you confirm that you are buying RBC media holding?

I confirm the fact that we are negotiating. And they are still going on.

Is the question still about the price? Is the information of Forbes magazine true that you are going to buy, among other things, the debt of the media holding, but at a greater discount than Onexim is ready to give?

I'm not ready to comment on the price. But I can tell you that RBC is business and good business.

Why do you want to buy RBC?

This is a question, on the one hand, about business, and on the other hand, about values.

In the 1990s, a friend of mine, who ran for the State Duma, did a study on where 10th grade schoolchildren want to go to work. And then everyone wanted to become businessmen. Now no one wants this - it is not prestigious in terms of reputation and risky.

But I think, as German Gref said today at the conference “Online cash registers. New Retail Opportunities” that a businessman is a small person who creates added value. This is the person on whom the country rests: he earns money for pensioners, for armed forces- pays taxes. In fact, this person should be supported by reputation in the country. RBC lives up to these values.

Interested in the amount of debt obligations of RBC, how much are you ready to buy a holding?

The process is underway. So far, I can't say anything about it. This is commercial information (according to Forbes, Onexim is ready to sell RBC's debt with a coefficient of 0.5 to par - that is, for $100 million, but Berezkin uses a coefficient of 0.2 and wants to buy it for $40 million - ed.).

On the sidelines of the conference “Online cash registers. New Retail Opportunities.

Berezkin refused to comment on the information on the Gazeta.Ru deal, forwarding questions to the press service of the ESN. It was not possible to get an operational comment from them.

"Double solid" RBC

Mikhail Prokhorov acquired a 51.1% stake in RBC media holding in 2010 for $80 million during an additional issue (about RUB 2.56 billion under exchange rate that time). The oligarch invited the well-known media manager Dirk Sauer to manage the media holding.

Since 2014, the former editor-in-chief of the site, and then the editor-in-chief of the magazine, was called to answer for the editorial part.

After some time, the publications of RBC caused dissatisfaction at the very highest level. In particular, this concerned articles allegedly devoted to members of the family of the head of state.

Also, one of the sources of Gazeta.Ru said that a photograph of Vladimir Putin to an article about Panamanian offshores published in the RBC newspaper caused an extremely negative reaction at the top.

Surprisingly, it so coincided that after the publication of these investigations, RBC conducted searches and seizure of documents at the head office of ONEXIM and controlled companies in connection with "possible tax evasion" after the publication of these investigations by RBC in April last year. And although searches were not carried out at RBC, experts explained them by very unambiguous signals that the authorities sent to Mikhail Prokhorov.

As the interlocutors of Gazeta.Ru told in the power structures in the spring of last year,

Prokhorov and his entourage were "really frightened, because they had a clear understanding that they had angered the first person of the country."

The oligarch was ready to sell the publication, several Gazeta.Ru sources claimed. However, there were no buyers then.

As a result, the media holding decided to change the management of the publication. Dirk Sauer, president of RBC, was transferred to the ONEXIM group. The CEO of RBC fired the editor-in-chief of RBC. As a sign of solidarity, some of the journalists, headed by Elizaveta Osetinskaya, also left. However, officially in RBC, the departure of Elizabeth Osetinskaya was explained by study leave. At the same time, Igor Trosnikov and Elizaveta Golikova, who were deputy chief editors, were called to lead the publication, and before that they had worked for many years at the Kommersant publishing house.

At their first editorial meeting, they joked about a "double line" that shouldn't be crossed.

Buy on your own

For a while, talk about the upcoming sale of the media holding stopped. However, in April of this year, a source close to RBC told the RNS agency that due diligence was already underway (the procedure for evaluating an investment object. - Gazeta.Ru) of RBC, in which, in particular, investment consultants from VTB Capital participate, and the deal itself can be signed within a month.

At the same time, experts assumed that this time the pressure on RBC was caused by dissatisfaction with publications about the rallies on March 26 and articles about “reformatting TV”.

A source in the media market notes that the slow reaction of Mikhail Prokhorov and the delay in the change of the previous leadership of RBC caused dissatisfaction.

Berezkin intends to finance the potential acquisition of the UST from its own funds. “We have no loans at all in the group. Basically," the businessman told the Interfax news agency.

The head of the ESN emphasizes that in the negotiations the ESN will represent only its own interests: “I read (it is actively discussed on the Internet that the group can be an intermediate buyer of RBC, representing the interests of the chief executive officer. - Gazeta.Ru). Well, it's funny. Very funny".

Previously, Gazeta.Ru sources called the National Media Group the most likely buyer of the media holding.

“Now the market is at the bottom, so it’s more profitable than ever to acquire media holdings,” the creator of the website roem.ru said in an interview with a Gazeta.ru correspondent. However, it is difficult to understand why Grigory Berezkin chose RBC specifically. According to Yuri Sinodov, "the existing assets of Berezkin and RBC intersect rather weakly."

The editors are trying to remain calm. As a source close to the RBC media holding told Gazeta.Ru, “it is still unclear, the editorial staff and journalists have taken a wait-and-see attitude, no one is writing resignations en masse.”

Reasons for the discount

Meanwhile, although Grigory Berezkin confirms the deal, he flatly refuses to comment on the amount that the purchase of RBC holding will cost him. According to media reports, last spring Mikhail Prokhorov was ready to sell RBC for $250 million (including $200 million in debt), but did not find buyers for such an expensive asset. Sources claim that Grigory Berezkin is now ready to pay "about $100 million." How the issue of debt will be resolved, they do not say. According to the interlocutors of Vedomosti, Berezkin can buy the entire business of RBC. The media holding includes a TV channel, a news site, a newspaper, a magazine and an online publication of the same name. In addition, the group has a business of Internet hosting and domain registration, conferences.

“Based on the reporting for 2016, the media holding can be valued at $60-65 million,”

— the leading analyst of Amarkets comments. At the same time, according to the analyst of Finam Investment Company, the total debt of RBC for long-term loans and loans is $225 million, for short-term loans - $52 million. If we analyze the structure of the debt, it turns out that most of the debt is made up of foreign currency loans, the expert notes.

Of the total amount of debt, the holding owes about $200 million to ONEXIM. At the same time, according to Forbes sources, the parties disagree in assessing the market value of the debt. ONEXIM is ready to sell this debt with a coefficient of 0.5 to par, that is, for $100 million, while Berezkin’s structures estimate the debt at a coefficient of 0.2 to par, that is, at $40 million. Timur Nigmatullin from Finam Investment Company believes that

the 0.5% discount is too high and is possibly due to the fact that "the buyer has doubts about RBC's operating performance."

Before the announcement of the sale, the RBC media holding disclosed for the first time the statistics of visits to the holding's main project, the rbc.ru website. Elizaveta Golikova, one of the leaders of the joint editorial office, announced this on her Facebook page.

So, according to Liveinternet, in March last year, the holding's audience was 26 million users, while in March this year it was 26.5 million. Yandex.News", 6.9% - from Gismeteo.ru, 5.6% - from the mobile version of Yandex.News, 5.2% - from news. 49% of the site's audience from social networks comes from Facebook, 31.9% from VKontakte, 12.7% from Twitter, 3.1% from Odnoklassniki, 2.6% from LiveJournal.

At the same time, Golikova admitted that the holding uses "partner" traffic sources - from Mail.ru and Gismeteo.ru.

Yuri Sinodov states that the holding is really actively engaged in attracting an audience, in particular, through the exchange of affiliate links and the purchase of traffic. At the same time, according to him, since the arrival of Elizaveta Golikova, RBC's audience has not grown very significantly. There are "except that seasonal movements."

The ONEXIM group of Mikhail Prokhorov sold the media holding. The transaction is completed, the ESN group bought back 65% of the shares and debt obligations of RBC from the ONEXIM group, according to a press release from the ESN. acted as a consultant on the transaction.

“RBC is now one of the leading media holdings in Russia, and we see great potential for its development in various areas,” Grigory Berezkin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ESN, commented on the deal.

The RBC media holding includes a TV channel of the same name, a news site, a newspaper, a magazine, and an online publication “On high technologies» . RBC also has a business of Internet hosting and domain registration, conferences. According to LiveInternet, the holding's monthly audience is 26 million users.

The sale of RBC has been actively discussed since last spring. According to a Gazeta.Ru source in power circles, a photograph of Vladimir Putin to an article about Panamanian offshores published in the RBC newspaper caused an extremely negative reaction. After the publication in April last year, they conducted searches and seizure of documents at the head office of ONEXIM and its controlled companies in connection with "possible tax evasion." Then it became known that Mikhail Prokhorov was selling his assets. As a result, the team of media managers changed in the holding. Igor Trosnikov and Elizaveta Golikova, who were deputy editors-in-chief, were called to lead the publication, and before that they had worked for many years in.

In April of this year, it became known about the resumption of negotiations on the sale of RBC. The vc.ru website wrote that the sale of Prokhorov's holding was forced by "powerful pressure" from the deputy head, who allegedly considered RBC's publications about protest rallies and a note about changing the agenda of federal television channels a "personal insult".

On the eve of the deal, even the President had to make excuses. During a "straight line" on June 15, he stated that he had not discussed the sale of RBC with Mikhail Prokhorov.

“I believe that such media as RBC are needed, sometimes even, to be honest, I watch it myself. And the information package that I see on the screens, in principle, I consider it useful, I like it. But some kind of pressure - in any case, I don’t know anything about it, ”the president said during the direct line.

Grigory Berezkin, the owner of the ESN, said earlier that he intends to finance the potential acquisition of the ESN from his own funds and will represent only his own interests in the negotiations.

The parties have not yet disclosed the amount of the transaction. The press release said that this was agreed between the seller and the buyer. Considering that RBC is a public company with a capitalization of 2.7 billion rubles, 65.43% of the holding could be valued at about 1.8 billion rubles. However, the company has large debts. The total debt is about $230 million, of which RBC owes $200 million to ONEXIM. For a long time, the assessment of the debt did not allow the parties to agree on the amount of the transaction. In particular, the signing was delayed, as the parties bargained to the last on issues related to who would be financially responsible if Rosneft still manages to sue RBC for 3.2 billion rubles. for damage to business reputation. Although the court refused, the company filed a complaint with a higher authority.

At the same time, the expert does not exclude that under the new owner, the holding will change not only the media policy, but also the personnel of the publication.

However, in a letter to RBC employees, cited by the RNS agency, Nikolai Molibog expresses confidence that Grigory Berezkin shares the fundamental principles of RBC's work. “The question that worries many is what impact the change of ownership will have on RBC's media assets. In my opinion, the key value of our media brand is to work professionally and make high-quality information and analytical media. Thanks to this approach, we daily confirm RBC's status as the main supplier of quality content for the economically active part of the population. This is a big part of RBC's success as a business, and I am sure that the new shareholder shares this point of view,” Molibog wrote.

The deal to sell the RBC media holding is closed, the asset has passed from Mikhail Prokhorov to Grigory Berezkin. Earlier it was reported that RBC is planned to be merged with Komsomolskaya Pravda into a single holding.

The fact that the deal was closed was reported to Kommersant by the representative of the ESN Grigory Berezkin Marianna Belousova. She does not disclose details. It has not yet been possible to contact representatives of ONEXIM.

The main subject of negotiations between the structures of Mr. Berezkin and ONEXIM was the settlement of RBC's debt, estimated, according to the company's latest financial statements, at about $277 million. Marianna Belousova did not say how this issue was settled.

Grigory Berezkina, a member of the ESN group, bought 65.43% of the voting shares of RBC PJSC and 80.463% of the authorized capital of RBC Online LLC. Permission for the deal was given in May by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). Mr. Berezkin announced plans to create a single media holding in the event of the purchase of RBC. “There are different audiences everywhere, there is a lot of synergy between them, it will, of course, be a single holding. There we will make the most of all the synergy that is in this business,” RNS reported the words of Mr. Berezkin. We are talking about synergy at the corporate level, and not about merging editorial offices, the representative of the businessman specified. Chief Editor " Komsomolskaya Pravda» Vladimir Sungorkin supports such an association.

Mr. Berezkin's main business is concentrated in the electric power industry and the oil industry. ESN owns a 50.5% stake in Rusenergosbyt LLC (the remaining stake belongs to the Italian energy concern ENEL), which supplies electricity to Russian Railways, KamAZ and the Gaz group. His other company, Rusenergoresurs (75% of the ESN), supplies electricity to Transneft. The Group owns two oil terminals. Mr. Berezkin has a telecommunications company "Rusenergotelecom" (75%), he also invested in the development operating system sailfish. It is believed that Grigory Berezkin maintains friendly relations with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whom he met in the early 2000s, in his own words, "at work."

Grigory Berezkin owns several print media. Since 2008, he has been developing the Moscow newspaper Metro, and since 2007 he has been the largest shareholder of the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house. A Kommersant source familiar with Mr. Berezkin claims that he has not managed Komsomolskaya Pravda for more than a year and now the newspaper is controlled by the heir of the St. Petersburg businessman Oleg Rudnov Sergey, who is associated with businessman Yuri Kovalchuk on the media market. Two minority shareholders of Komsomolskaya Pravda, as follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, are Vitaly Krivenko and Sergey Orlov. Mr. Krivenko worked at the Mikhailov and Partners agency, then at Russian Railways, just like Mr. Orlov. They also own the RZD-Partner publishing house, which ESN sold in 2015.

A Kommersant source close to the deal clarifies that RBC is planned to be transferred to the management of the shareholders of Komsomolskaya Pravda, and Mr. Berezkin himself will not manage the media company.

The deal for the sale of RBC media holding is closed, the asset has passed from Mikhail Prokhorov to Grigory Berezkin. Earlier it was reported that RBC is planned to be merged with Komsomolskaya Pravda into a single holding.

Marianna Belousova, a representative of Grigory Berezkin's ESN, told Kommersant that the deal was closed. She does not disclose details. It has not yet been possible to contact representatives of ONEXIM.

The main subject of negotiations between the structures of Mr. Berezkin and ONEXIM was the settlement of RBC's debt, which, according to the company's latest financial statements, is estimated at about $277 million. Marianna Belousova did not say how this issue was settled.

Grigory Berezkina, a member of the ESN group, bought 65.43% of the voting shares of RBC PJSC and 80.463% of the authorized capital of RBC Online LLC. Permission for the deal was given in May by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). Mr. Berezkin announced plans to create a single media holding in the event of the purchase of RBC. “There are different audiences everywhere, there is a lot of synergy between them, it will, of course, be a single holding. There we will make the most of all the synergy that is in this business,” RNS reported the words of Mr. Berezkin. We are talking about synergy at the corporate level, and not about merging editorial offices, the representative of the businessman specified. Vladimir Sungorkin, editor-in-chief of Komsomolskaya Pravda, supports such an association.

RBC shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange, capitalization on June 16 in the middle of the day was 2.63 billion rubles.

Mr. Berezkin's main business is concentrated in the electric power industry and the oil industry. ESN owns a 50.5% stake in Rusenergosbyt LLC (the remaining stake belongs to the Italian energy concern ENEL), which supplies electricity to Russian Railways, KamAZ and the Gaz group. His other company, Rusenergoresurs (75% in ESN), supplies electricity to Transneft. The Group owns two oil terminals. Mr. Berezkin has a telecommunications company Rusenergotelecom (75%), he also invested in the development of the Sailfish operating system. It is believed that Grigory Berezkin maintains friendly relations with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, whom he met in the early 2000s, in his own words, "at work."

Grigory Berezkin owns several print media. Since 2008, he has been developing the Moscow newspaper Metro, and since 2007 he has been the largest shareholder of the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house. A Kommersant source who is familiar with Mr. Berezkin claims that he has not managed Komsomolskaya Pravda for more than a year and now the newspaper is controlled by the heir of St. Petersburg businessman Oleg Rudnov, Sergei, who is associated with businessman Yuri Kovalchuk in the media market. Two minority shareholders of Komsomolskaya Pravda, as follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, are Vitaly Krivenko and Sergey Orlov. Mr. Krivenko worked at the Mikhailov and Partners agency, then at Russian Railways, just like Mr. Orlov. They also own the RZD-Partner publishing house, which ESN sold in 2015.

A Kommersant source close to the deal clarifies that the option of transferring RBC to overall structure with Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Sources of Kommersant also say that the new owner does not plan to change the heads of the editorial office, Elizaveta Golikova and Igor Trosnikov. They manage the editorial office for about a year, after the departure of their predecessors - Elizaveta Osetinskaya, Roman Badanin and Maxim Solius. As RBC employees said then, they left the publication due to pressure from officials, which intensified after the publication of investigations concerning the president's family and people from his entourage.

In addition to the current leaders in RBC, Alexei Abakumov can go to work, Kommersant's interlocutors said earlier. He now holds the post of deputy general director of the Rumedia group, which manages the Business FM and Chocolate radio stations, and previously worked for REN TV and Radio Russia.

At the end of last year, RBC received revenue of 5.58 billion rubles, EBITDA - 875 million rubles. The total audience of the holding is estimated at 23 million people.

Anna Afanasyeva

How key editors left RBC

In May 2016, the RBC media holding announced the resignation of its editorial leaders — the holding's editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya, the news agency's chief editor Roman Badanin, and the newspaper's editor-in-chief Maxim Solius. According to the official version, the breakup was due to the lack of "unanimous opinion on some important issues." The employees themselves who left the holding then connected the situation with the editorial policy of RBC.