Finansovaya Rossiya (Financial Russia), Moscow, 001, Page 7, January 16, 2003

This will be the second time in the contemporary history of the domestic stock market when a Russian company will have an IPO for attracting investments. RBC became the IPO pioneer in the spring of 2002. On April 18, the holding's parent company RBC Information Systems performed an initial public offering of its shares for about $13.3m, which accounted for 16 percent of the company's share capital. This IPO was accompanied by a massive preliminary PR action that had heftily heated the interest of investors. As a result, the shares were sold like pancakes, at a price of $0.83. With active support from the IPO organizers, i.e. Aton Capital and Alfa Bank, the shares enjoyed rather high demand at first. The number of sold RBC shares on the stock market reached hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions until July. On July 2, the price for RBC shares surpassed $1 and the company's capitalization increased by a third since April. Investors have seen the new securities as an opportunity to diversify their portfolios with highly risky and potentially high yield assets, since the shares represented a high-tech company, and in general, the market wanted to try something new.

Anton Kuzin