Grigory Berezkin RBC. Where did RBC, bought by Berezkin, get such huge debts? "Double continuous" RBC

Prokhorov has owned a controlling stake in RBC since July 2010; now the structures of his management company Onexim own 61.6% of the shares of the media holding. About 35% of the shares are traded on the Moscow Exchange, the rest are held by minority shareholders. At the end of May, the Federal Antimonopoly Service granted the request of Sotol Project JSC (this company is part of the Berezkin Unified Social Tax group) to acquire a 65.4% stake in RBC.

RBC includes a TV channel of the same name, a news website, a newspaper, a magazine, as well as an online publication about high technologies, CNews. The group also has a business in Internet hosting and domain registration, holding conferences, etc.

RBC's revenue in 2016 increased by 9.7% to 5.6 billion rubles, EBITDA by 16% to 556 million rubles. The majority of the holding’s revenue comes from media assets.

The total audience of RBC projects is 25 million people per month, the holding indicates with reference to Mediascope data. Of these, 17 million people on average watch the RBC channel per month, 10 million people read the RBC website, 2 million people read the newspaper and magazine of the same name.

The fact that Berezkin had agreed in principle to purchase RBC became known in mid-April. The businessman expected that the deal would be signed before the May holidays, two of his acquaintances said at the time. But in the end, the signing was delayed.

By the end of April, the parties agreed on the financial parameters of the deal, including the issue of debt, according to two interlocutors close to both sides of the negotiations. The media holding has a large debt - at the end of 2016 it amounted to 14.9 billion rubles. The lion's share of this amount is RBC's debt to "Onexim". The signing was delayed because the parties bargained until the last minute on issues related to who - the buyer or the seller - would, in particular, bear financial responsibility if Rosneft nevertheless managed to sue RBC for 3.2 billion rubles for damage to business reputation . The court in April denied compensation to the oil company, but Rosneft filed a cassation appeal against this decision.

According to two sources, the new owner does not plan to change the holding team. Back in April, Berezkin met with the general director of the holding, Nikolai Molibog, and invited him to continue leading RBC, an acquaintance of the businessman knows. Editorial team managed Elizaveta Golikova and Igor Trosnikov, they will also offer to stay, two sources close to Berezkin know. Molibog, Golikova and Trosnikov declined to comment.

According to Forbes, ONEXIM was ready to sell this debt at a ratio of 0.5 to par, that is, for $100 million, and Berezkin’s structures valued the debt at a ratio of 0.2 to par, that is, at $40 million.

Timur Nigmatullin from Finam Investment Company previously stated that the discount was too high and was possibly due to the fact that “the buyer doubts RBC’s operating performance.”

“RBC is an asset with a well-known reputation and an audience that is accustomed to quality. She would certainly like RBC to be preserved in the form in which it currently operates. The new RBC will need to win its audience,” says Alexey Makarkin, first vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies.

At the same time, the expert does not rule out that under the new owner there will be a change in the holding not only in media policy, but also in the staffing of the publication - K.ru box]

After the searches, any potential buyers and VTB abandoned negotiations on the purchase of RBC, says an interlocutor close to the holding. Pressure from officials led to the fact that last May many journalists, led by the chief editor of the joint editorial office of RBC, left RBC Elizaveta Osetinskaya .

VTB returned to negotiations again this winter, two sources familiar with the details of the deal said. And at the beginning of the year, the main candidate for purchase, according to them, was Berezkin.

Berezkin's main assets are related to oil and electricity: the Unified Social Network owns two oil terminals (Uyar and Skovorodino), 50.5% of the energy trader Rusenergosbyt (the main consumer is Russian Railways), controls Rusenergoresurs (electricity supplier for Transneft). The businessman is also interested in the media business - in 2007, the Unified Social Network bought a controlling stake in the Komsomolskaya Pravda publishing house. The ID does not disclose the current shareholder structure. The general director and co-owner of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vladimir Sungorkin, stated only that for him “Berezkin is always a shareholder.” A year ago, sources said that the main shareholder of the publishing house is the Baltic Media Group (owned by the heirs of Oleg Rudnov), and Berezkin no longer manages this asset.

Negotiations on the sale of RBC are approaching the finish line - on Wednesday, May 10, it became known that the FAS received a request to acquire a 65.43% stake in the RBC holding from the owner of the ESN group, Grigory Berezkin. A well-known Russian journalist told Realnoe Vremya about how the sale of the holding could affect the format and editorial policy of the publication, what will happen to the old RBC team and why Berezkin is not afraid to acquire media outlets with millions in debt.

“An excellent investigation there could have been accompanied by a note about Putin eating children.”

Anastasia, what do you think about the sale of the RBC holding - how serious is this event for the Russian media sphere?

The fact that RBC was preparing for sale was already clear when editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya left the publication. Initially, it was an old-style business publication: what I mean is that there was no such speed of news delivery - they were all seasoned and checked. RBC has always maintained its brand. Then Lisa came, who only improved the publication. But I think that both she and her team understood that something similar could happen to them.

The fact is that many of their materials were directly anti-state in nature: a smart investigation there could be side by side with a note about the fact that Putin is Hitler and he eats children. I think that this could be a little too much even for European publications, which feel quite at ease: for example, some gay magazine, like Garcon, can depict the elected president of France with a naked hummock on its cover. In Russia, this is not only unacceptable, we just hold slightly different views - we are conservatives in this regard for now. We are a northern country, cold ( laughs). I think that they walked on the edge of a knife, and Mikhail Prokhorov allowed them to do this.

In my opinion, Prokhorov to some extent used RBC for some of his business interests. He started having problems and tried to solve them through RBC. Taken together, all this influenced the fact that the question of repurchasing the holding arose. When Lisa left, people from TASS began to come there, and it became clear that when the team changed, the owner himself would change.

“I think they walked on a knife edge, and Mikhail Prokhorov allowed them to do it.” Photo finparty.ru

If we talk about “risky” content, is this “crossing the double solid” forever a thing of the past for RBC?

I don’t think that this is a “double solid”, it’s just that the guys published such things at their own peril and risk. Moreover, it’s one thing when these things are published with some reason, but when we see a groundless attack on business interests, we must understand that sooner or later you can pay for it - it’s very difficult for us to “maneuver between the trickles.”

State regulation of certain issues and this “state whip” in relation to the media sometimes work negatively for us. For example, if Vladimir Putin can forgive a publication about his daughter, the Kremlin cannot forgive this. Officials begin to figure out what the publication was connected with, and they discover some business interests there. What I mean is that we don’t have independent journalism as such, and these materials were published for someone’s purposes, and “those at the top” know exactly whose purposes.

“I’m a terrible Putinist - I love the president, I respect him as a person and as a manager, but...”

How might the sale of the holding affect the publication’s editorial policy? If you fantasize, what could RBC turn into?

RBC's style has already changed. I know the guys who now work at RBC - they are excellent journalists, but, naturally, if a new owner comes, he will begin to defend someone’s interests.

As far as I understand, there is now such a shake-up in the media ahead of the presidential election. The last milestone was passed when Tatyana Lysova left Vedomosti. Dozhd transformed, then RBC followed, and only then Vedomosti. After this, it became clear that they wanted to create a more ultra-patriotic agenda before the elections.

“I am a terrible Putinist - I love the president, I respect him as a person and as a manager, but I understand perfectly well that he is not the only one who makes politics in the country and that it is easier for these people not to come to an agreement, not to wage a beautiful fight with people who have a different opinion, but it’s easier for them to just remove them from the chessboard.” Photo kremlin.ru

I think this is not very good, because there must be some kind of valve that would release all the accumulated steam. If there is no such media now, then there will be a negative attitude towards the authorities - I emphasize that it is towards the authorities... You see, I am a terrible Putinist - I love the president, I respect him as a person and as a manager, but I understand perfectly well that he is not the only one who makes politics country and that it is easier for these people not to come to an agreement, not to have a nice fight with people who hold a different opinion, but it is easier for them to simply remove them from the chessboard. This is categorically wrong.

- What do you think will happen to the publication team?

I am of two minds about this. If a person comes who will not tighten the screws or severely limit the guys in their investigations and materials, then the team can survive. If a tough person comes... The fact is that if you care about your state, this does not mean that you should not write about corruption scandals and that you will hush up this topic. But as far as I know opposition journalists, they would rather finish their bread without butter, but still remain in their opinion, but not because they are so proud and independent, but because they do not know how to “maneuver between the streams” - they don’t given. They are too straightforward, just like our jingoistic patriots. They are completely inflexible - unfortunately, Russian journalism is still inflexible. You can write material about corruption that is not one-sided, not one-sided, but our presentation of materials is so far either overly far-fetched, oppositional, made up from thin air, or about the fact that: “Well, they stole 120 billion - so what? They steal even more abroad.” We still live in such cramped conditions.

“I think that Prokhorov deliberately brought the RBC holding into debt to himself”

- What kind of figure is Grigory Berezkin? Does he have experience managing business media?

If you look at Grigory Viktorovich as a person - from the point of view of how he carries himself, what kind of look he has, and so on, then I think that he really knows how to find the middle, keep the team together and at the same time not let the media ratings fall . I think that his activities and his track record indicate this - he has been involved in the energy and oil industry all his life. But I didn’t work with him, so I can’t say exactly what kind of manager he is - I judge him by what he did and by what was written about him. He is modern, he understands economics... Here you can expect, on the contrary, perhaps some kind of flourishing or format update.

Everyone compares RBC with the period of Liza Osetinskaya, and after her departure the publication sank somewhat in the ratings, so now Berezkin faces an important task - to find a middle ground and show that journalism can be different, that you can criticize the authorities, but do it without going too far stick in the direction of hatred of one’s state (which sometimes slipped through Osetinskaya’s mind).

“Now Berezkin faces an important task - to find a middle ground and show that journalism can be different, that you can criticize the authorities, but do it without going too far in the direction of hatred of your state.” Photo: Alexey Nikolsky / press service of the President of the Russian Federation / TASS / Scanpix / LETA

And the fact that the Kremlin does not interfere in the affairs of RBC is, I think, a fiction, because we all know who the curators of the media in the Kremlin are, and we understand perfectly well that such a deal cannot be completed without some kind of consultation and close attention of the Kremlin . I think that the Kremlin will someday find the strength to say that it is monitoring the situation, because RBC is a serious player in the media market.

RBC has serious debts to Prokhorov’s structures (if I’m not mistaken, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars). Why is Berezkin acquiring RBC in such a difficult financial situation?

I think that Prokhorov deliberately brought the RBC holding into debt to himself, because, you see, no one wants to sell something for next to nothing or not win from the sale. Prokhorov himself bought the holding in not the best condition.

I think they will pay something, and someone will help him [Berezkin] (laughs) , otherwise a person would not buy this holding - no one will buy an absolutely unprofitable project. This deal is necessary: ​​the Kremlin needs it, and Berezkin and Prokhorov are also looking for their benefits from this deal. So in this situation, it seems to me, both the sheep will be safe and the wolves will be fed.

In general, our media earn very little. You see how many billions of dollars are being poured into state media, but their effectiveness is zero. We all praise Russia Today, but no one watches them. This is a big disadvantage for our media managers.

Lina Sarimova

The owner of Onexim, Mikhail Prokhorov, agreed with the owner of the ESN energy holding, Grigory Berezkin, on the sale of the RBC media holding. Vedomosti writes about this with reference to sources close to Prokhorov and the investment bank VTB Capital, which is advising on the deal.

To bookmarks

The parties can sign the deal before May 1, Vedomosti sources say. According to them, Prokhorov and Berezkin “agreed in principle.” The deal was also reported by sources from the RNS agency, including those close to RBC. According to them, the deal also “could be signed within a month.”

One of Vedomosti’s interlocutors claims that VTB Capital is not just advising Prokhorov, but is acting as the organizer of the transaction and has itself found a buyer. Representatives of Prokhorov, Berezkin and RBC refused to comment to the publication about the possible deal. VTB said that it does not comment on “other people’s transactions.”

Managing Director of the Unified Social Tax Boris Krasnovsky, in a conversation with the site, said that he “will not comment on rumors.”

Mikhail Prokhorov has owned a controlling stake in RBC since July 2010; the holding includes a newspaper of the same name, a magazine, a TV channel and an online publication. The group also includes the publication CNews, the business of hosting and domain registration, holding conferences, and so on.

The first rumors about Prokhorov’s plans to sell RBC in April 2016, then in the head office of Onexim and in the offices of the structures included in the group. The media wrote that the sale of the asset from the businessman was required by the state leadership “at the highest level” due to the publication of investigations about the friends and associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Onexim repeatedly provides this information.

In May 2016, the management of the RBC media holding decided to dismiss the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the same name, Maxim Solyus. In response to this, RBC editor-in-chief Roman Badanin and editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya announced their departure. Following them, some journalists left the group's publications. Subsequently, the joint editorial staff of RBC was Elizaveta Golikova and Igor Trosnikov, who had previously worked at Kommersant and TASS.

Grigory Berezkin's Unified Social Tax includes oil and energy companies. In 2007, the group also acquired a controlling stake in the Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. The publishing house does not disclose the shareholder structure, so it is unknown whether Berezkin’s structures are included in the management of the publishing house, Vedomosti points out. The general director and co-owner of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vladimir Sungorkin, told the publication that for him, “Berezkin is always a shareholder.” In addition, Berezkin owns the Moscow version of the Metro newspaper.

According to NI's source, the main issue of the deal - RBC's debt to the Onexim group - has been resolved. The debt will be bought by VTB structures and it will be restructured. According to a source close to VTB, the media holding has every opportunity to service the debt.

According to our data, Onexim will receive about $50 million from the Unified Social Tax. And this is close to the amount that was spent on investments in the development of the holding.

Meanwhile, the Dozhd TV channel has already reported that the founder and owner of the ESN group, Grigory Berezkin, has closed the deal to purchase RBC. The channel refers to three sources close to the holding’s management, and another one close to the deal.

Mr. Berezkin himself has not yet confirmed the closure of the deal. “I can’t say about today or not. Still, Friday is a debauchery. But time (before closing the deal.- “Kommersant”) there is very little left,” said Grigory Berezkin.

ONEXIM has not yet commented on the situation. The Unified Tax Service told Kommersant that the deal has not yet been closed. According to a company representative, the signing is in progress and will most likely be completed today.

Let us remind you that Mr. Berezkin is buying the entire stake in RBC, which is being sold by ONEXIM. FAS approved this transaction. Mr. Berezkin has owned the Moscow newspaper Metro since 2008, and since 2007 he has been the largest shareholder of the Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House.

May 25 The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) allowed the Unified Social Tax structure of Grigory Berezkin to buy RBC. The capitalization of the media holding on the Moscow Exchange that day increased by more than 11% - to 2.92 billion rubles.

From the list of affiliates dated April 3, it followed that 56.07% of RBC belonged to ONEXIM Group LLC, 5.2% to the Cypriot Onexim Holdings Ltd, 0.65% to the Cypriot Pragla Ltd (previously controlled almost the entire stake of ONEXIM), and 0.333% - to member of the board of directors of RBC Alexander Lyubimov. That is, in total these shareholders own 62.253%. Under this deal, the ONEXIM group will consolidate the entire package, sources close to the negotiations said.

On the sidelines of the conference “Online cash registers. New retail opportunities."

Berezkin refused to comment on the information on the deal to Gazeta.Ru, referring questions to the press service of the Unified Social Tax. It was not possible to get immediate comment from them.

"Double continuous" RBC

Mikhail Prokhorov acquired 51.1% of the shares of the RBC media holding in 2010 for $80 million during an additional issue (about 2.56 billion rubles according to course that time). The oligarch invited the famous media manager Derk Sauer to manage the media holding.

Since 2014, the former editor-in-chief of the site, and then the editor-in-chief of the magazine, was called to answer for the editorial part.

After some time, RBC's publications caused dissatisfaction at the highest level. In particular, this concerned articles devoted to alleged family members of the head of state.

Also, one of the sources of Gazeta.Ru said that an extremely negative reaction at the top was caused by a photograph of Vladimir Putin for an article about Panamanian offshore companies published in the RBC newspaper.

Surprisingly, it coincided that after the publication of these investigations, RBC in April last year conducted searches and seizure of documents at the head office of ONEXIM and controlled companies in connection with “possible tax evasion.” And although searches were not carried out at RBC, experts explained them as very clear signals sent by the authorities to Mikhail Prokhorov.

As Gazeta.Ru’s interlocutors in government agencies said last spring,

Prokhorov and his entourage were “really scared, because they had a clear understanding that they had angered the first person of the country.”

The oligarch was ready to sell the publication, several Gazeta.Ru sources claimed. However, there were no buyers then.

As a result, the media holding decided to change the management of the publication. Derk Sauer, president of RBC, was transferred to the ONEXIM group. The CEO of RBC fired the editor-in-chief of RBC. As a sign of solidarity, some of the journalists, led by Elizaveta Osetinskaya, also left. However, officially at RBC, Elizaveta Osetinskaya’s departure was explained by study leave. At the same time, Igor Trosnikov and Elizaveta Golikova, who were deputy editors-in-chief and had previously worked for many years at the Kommersant Publishing House, were called to lead the publication.

At the first editorial meeting, they joked about a “double solid” that should not be crossed.

Buy with his own

For a while, talk about the upcoming sale of the media holding stopped. However, in April of this year, a source close to RBC told the RNS agency that due diligence (the procedure for assessing an investment object. - Gazeta.Ru) of RBC is already underway, in which, in particular, investment consultants from VTB Capital are participating, and the deal itself can be signed within a month.

At the same time, experts assumed that this time the pressure on RBC was caused by dissatisfaction with publications about the rallies on March 26 and articles about the “reformatting of TV.”

A source in the media market notes that dissatisfaction was caused by the slow reaction of Mikhail Prokhorov and the delay in replacing the previous management of RBC.

Berezkin says she intends to finance the potential acquisition of the unified social tax from her own funds. “We have no loans at all in our group. In principle,” the entrepreneur told Interfax.

The head of the UST emphasizes that in the negotiations the UST will represent only its own interests: “I read (it is actively discussed on the Internet that the group could be an intermediate buyer of RBC, representing the interests of the chief executive officer - Gazeta.Ru). Well, that's funny. Very funny".

Previously, Gazeta.Ru sources named the National Media Group as the most likely buyer of the media holding

“Now the market is at the bottom, so it’s more profitable than ever to acquire media holdings,” the creator of the website roem.ru noted in a conversation with a Gazeta.Ru correspondent. However, it is difficult to understand why Grigory Berezkin chose RBC. According to Yuri Sinodov, “the existing assets of Berezkin and RBC overlap quite weakly.”

The editorial office itself is still trying to remain calm. As a source close to the RBC media holding told Gazeta.Ru, “it’s still unclear, the editorial staff and journalists have taken a wait-and-see approach, no one is writing resignation letters en masse.”

Reasons for discount

Meanwhile, although Grigory Berezkin confirms the deal, he flatly refuses to comment on the question of the amount that the purchase of the RBC holding will cost him. According to media reports, last spring Mikhail Prokhorov was ready to sell RBC for $250 million (including a debt of $200 million), but did not find buyers for such an expensive asset. Sources claim that Grigory Berezkin is now ready to pay “about $100 million.” They do not say how the debt issue will be resolved. According to Vedomosti’s interlocutors, Berezkin can buy the entire RBC business. The media holding includes a TV channel of the same name, a news website, a newspaper, a magazine and an online publication. In addition, the group has a business in Internet hosting and domain registration, and holding conferences.

“Based on the reporting for 2016, the media holding can be valued at $60-65 million,”

— comments the leading analyst of Amarkets. At the same time, according to an analyst from Finam Investment Company, the total debt of the RBC company for long-term loans and borrowings is $225 million, for short-term loans - $52 million. If you analyze the structure of the debt, it turns out that the majority of the debt is made up of foreign currency loans, the expert notes.

Of the total debt, the holding owes about $200 million to ONEXIM. At the same time, according to Forbes sources, the parties disagree on the market value of the debt. ONEXIM is ready to sell this debt with a ratio of 0.5 to par - that is, for $100 million, and Berezkin’s structures value the debt with a ratio of 0.2 to par - that is, at $40 million. Timur Nigmatullin from Finam Investment Company believes that

the 0.5% discount is too high and is possibly due to the fact that “the buyer doubts RBC’s operating performance.”

Before the announcement of the sale, the RBC media holding for the first time disclosed visitor statistics for the holding’s main project, the rbc.ru website. One of the leaders of the joint editorial office, Elizaveta Golikova, reported this on her Facebook page.

Thus, according to Liveinternet, in March last year the holding’s audience was 26 million users, while in March of this year it was 26.5 million. In March of this year, 20.4% of users came directly to the site from bookmarks, 12% from the “ Yandex.News", 6.9% - from Gismeteo.ru, 5.6% - from the mobile version of "Yandex.News", 5.2% - from news. 49% of the site’s audience from social networks comes from Facebook, 31.9% from VKontakte, 12.7% from Twitter, 3.1% from Odnoklassniki, 2.6% from LiveJournal.

At the same time, Golikova admitted that the holding uses “partner” traffic sources - from Mail.ru and Gismeteo.ru.

Yuri Sinodov states that the holding is really actively engaged in attracting audiences, in particular, through the exchange of affiliate links and the purchase of traffic. At the same time, according to his assessment, since the arrival of Elizaveta Golikova, RBC’s audience has not grown very significantly. There are “only seasonal movements.”