"Sekret Firmy (Kommersant)" (Moscow), May 22, 2002

Market methods

An active presence on the capital market is an efficient booster of a company's value. Primarily it refers to initial public offerings. The latest successful example is the RBC information agency, which placed its shares on RTS and MICEX in April.

Two years ago RBC founders were offered to sell their business for $15m. The management rejected the deal although many people thought it was a good price. Recently RBC has floated 16 percent of shares for $13m, which means the company's capitalization is $83m. The IPO was conducted after a massive PR campaign, wherein Aton and Alfa-Bank, the underwriters of the issue, released research with comprehensive comments on the issuer's financial performance and market outlooks. Despite analysts' criticism against the employed methodology, the RBC share issue was four times oversubscribed.

Sevastian Kozitsyn