"Soup" combined with the "Rambler". And why is all this necessary?

We, the editorial staff of Roem.ru, have just received a press release that the “Soup” and “Rambler-Poster” are merging:

Alexander Mamut's investment group A & NN and Vladimir Potanin’s Interros holding decided to merge their Internet assets. The combined company accumulates over 35 million unique visitors on its websites and will take the third place in terms of the largest audience on the Russian-language Internet.

Alexander Mamut will become the managing shareholder and chairman of the board of directors.
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Interestingly, the "Soup" is now far from rising and generally unprofitable. "Live Journal" does not scold just lazy. The editor-in-chief Mikhail Kotov, who has worked 13 years in the publication, has just left Gazeta.ru.

The answer is given by Forbes commentators:

As a source familiar with the details of the negotiations told Forbes, the billionaires did not evaluate the value of their assets on the eve of the deal: “Both agreed to pool the assets. Potanin does not have a person who could and would like to manage his Internet assets . There was Akopov (Rafael Akopov, the former president of ProfMedia holding, part of which is the combined company Afishi and Rambler. - Forbes), but he left. So Potanin was looking for this deal no less than Mamut. ”

And not only that:

According to IMHO VI Chairman of the Board Arsen Revazov, the main purpose of the new alliance is traffic exchange . “If someone used to buy traffic because he lacked it, today it is legal and fair. In addition, if the new holding succeeds in centralizing the system of advertising sales, the profitability will certainly increase, ”he says.

Rambler.ru really bought traffic on the Marketgid - now the company will not have such a need. It seems that in the united company they want to build the same monstrous network of transferring traffic from the project to the project, like RBC, where traffic flows freely between Anekdot.ru, Rbc.ru and other publications of the holding