Rossiyskaya Biznes-Gazeta (Moscow) - June 8, 2004

A Russian agency enters the global media market

Over the past eleven years the RosBusinessConsulting holding company has been "muscling up" through the use of its internal reserves, careful recruitment of personnel and implementation of new ideas in the sectors of information technologies and mass media. During that period, the company has managed to create a major information agency, specializing in economic and business news, as well as a firm basis for the development and installation of software solutions. The company's sales volume reached $48.5m last year, and the net consolidated profit amounted to $3.7m. Interestingly, in contrast to other Russian companies, this company is not ashamed of speaking about its profits: RBC is in 15th place on the transparency rating list of Russia's 45 major companies, prepared by Standard & Poor's.

The time has come to change the development strategy. According to German Kaplun, the chairman of the Board of Directors of RBC, the company's business will become more intensive and even aggressive. Within the framework of the new strategy, it is planned to conduct a number of takeovers on both the IT and media markets. Talks on future acquisitions have already been started.

However, the first step towards business expansion will be an additional issue of securities. The volume of the offering is 15m common shares, making up 15 percent of the authorized capital. Seventy percent of the funds to be received from the offering of the shares will be allocated for acquiring companies in the media and IT sectors, and 30 percent will be spent on the implementation of new projects. The shares will be offered to a limited group of investors in Russia, Europe and the USA.

The parent company of the holding is RBC Information Systems Joint-Stock Company. This company conducted the first initial public offering (IPO) of shares in the history of post-Soviet Russia on the domestic market in 2002. The amount of preliminary orders for shares in RBC was over $64m, and the demand exceeded the supply by fivefold.

As a result of the offering, the company's capitalization reached $83m. RBC is in 5th place among the Russian companies that investors view with particular optimism (according to the Expert-200 capitalization rating list).

According to German Kaplun, the estimated net consolidated profit for 2004 is $10.8m.

Other companies of the holding are also broadly known. For example, the RIA RosBusinessConsulting news agency, which has been working on the Russian market of business information since 1993.

There is also the RBC SOFT Private Joint-Stock Company, which develops all kinds of software products, provides IT consulting services, system integration and a full range of services from pre-project analysis to installation and support.

And finally, there is RBC TV, which is the most prestigious project over the past few years. RBC places great hopes on this first business TV channel in Russia. At present, RBC TV broadcasts its programs in over 30 cities of Russia, reaching a total potential audience of 29.12m people. Surveys conducted by the COMCON-Media company showed that the channel's weekly audience in Russia was 1.563m people (including 383,000 people in Moscow). Most of them are prosperous people: businessmen, managers and professionals in the industrial, construction and financial sectors. They also include government officials of various ranks. It is no secret that RBC's successes are the result of a considered strategy of management and a carefully formed team of professionals. In the opinion of the management of the holding company, these factors will also facilitate the achievement of new goals.