Vedomosti (Moscow), January 13, 2003

The Vedomosti newspaper has learned that today the pharmaceutical company 36.6 Drugstore Chain will announce an upcoming floating of over 20 percent of its shares via the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange (MICEX). According to analyst estimates, the company can earn $20m to $25m from this operation.

The first Russian company to float its shares on Russian exchanges, MICEX and the RTS, was OAO RBC Information Systems. Its creators managed to sell 16 percent of RBC shares for $13.3m last year.

The company has not specified the volume of resources it is planning to attract on the exchange. Analysts forecast a $90m to $120m capitalization of the 36.6 Drugstore Chain. "We have no right to speak about this deal so far, but we believe that placing shares on an exchange will be an increasingly popular instrument for developing Russian companies," Dmitry Khusayev, managing director of ING Investment Banking Moscow, said. "Basically, the company's shares can be interesting for Russian market makers," Alexander Zakharov, sales manager at Alfa Bank, believes. "They are actively looking for new investment targets, including second-tier shares. There is no doubt that the stake will be floated." However, in his opinion 36.6 shares can be as successful as RBC only if their sale price is minimal. "Mind the first IPO on the Russian market," he says. "RBC shares were placed at $0.83, then their price declined to $0.6-$0.65, as the majority of analysts forecasted."