Vedomosti (Moscow), December 10, 2003

Yesterday, the auditing company Deloitte published the rating of 500 most rapidly growing companies in Europe operating in the IT sector. The only Russian company listed in the rating was RBC Information Systems (RBC). Deloitte noted that a lot of other Russian companies could have been included in the rating if they had had sufficient financial transparency.

The Italian Internet provider Tiscali was rated No. 1 with a rise in revenues reaching 56,769 percent over the past five years. The Italian IT company is followed by Norwegian software developer East Search & Transfer (with a 44,108-percent rise in revenues) and the French producer of network equipment Netsize (a 30,620-percent rise in revenues). Among other top ten IT companies on the list are the Swedish companies Nordnet, Anoto Group and Glocalnet, the UK company Host Europe, Israeli Schema, Italian Finmatica and German OHB Technology.

The RBC holding was ranked 43rd. According to Deloitte, the company's revenues saw a 2,112-percent increase over the previous five years. The core businesses of the holding are the news Internet resource RosBusinessConsulting, the business television channel RBC TV and RBC Soft, a division that develops software and offers system integration services. Last April, RBC conducted the first initial public offering in Russia, placing 16 percent of its shares on the RTS and MICEX exchanges, and gained $13.28m. According to the company's own forecasts, its revenues will reach $39m in 2003.

This was the second time when Deloitte included RBC in its ratings. In 2002, the company was ranked 72nd. "These estimates of Deloitte were a pleasant surprise for us," RBC General Director Yury Rovensky was quoted as saying. "They came to this conclusion as a result of their own estimations based on data from open sources, and we provided them with no additional information," he said.

Svetlana Vitkovskaya