Anatoly Chubais - about the new strategy of Rosnano, about the reform of innovation institutions, about effective ways of investing

The company "Rosnano" - has an ambiguous reputation, as well as its head, Anatoly Chubais. To some, the results of her work seem to be impressive, but someone has great doubts about this. Claims against Rosnano were also made by anti-corruption Alexei Navalny. He stated that even during the creation of this corporation in 2007, its true “goals” - “fiction”, “sharashka”, “drank budget”, “positions for muddy people” and so on — were clear.

Nevertheless, according to the plan, the company should have suffered losses until next year, but showed a profit (8.2 billion rubles) in 2014. Rosnano is the only Russian development institute whose responsibility is not to issue grants, not to create startups, but to build large high-tech industries. The net profit of Rosnano has more than doubled in 2015 - from 8.2 billion to almost 17 billion rubles. 2015 was a good year for the company, judging by its reporting.

With such results, the first stage of Rosnano development was completed, as the head of the state-owned company Anatoly Chubais explained. He told the RBC correspondent about what the second stage of the company's development will be, about the reform of the institutes of innovative development, import substitution, effective ways of investing and much more.
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"Megamind" leads the most interesting quotes from the interview .

On the second stage of the development of Rosnano

We, perhaps, we ourselves did not immediately understand who we are, did not understand what kind of animal we are. But when they figured out, they approved a new strategy, and everything fell into place. In fact, we belong to the class of private equity, “venture funds”. This means that the investment cycle lasts from six to ten years. We deployed our first investments exactly eight years ago, and now they are completed, we are starting a wave of exits. Therefore, we say that our first investment period is coming to an end.

At the same time we are starting the next stage - we are forming new funds. In 2014, we raised in addition to our 7 billion rubles the same amount of external funds, last year we attracted 16 billion rubles to our 16 billion rubles. By 2016, the figure is good, but nevertheless we did not reach the desired parameter: it turned out that we created six funds, of which three collapsed in December last year. Each case had its own reasons, but it was very disappointing.

Last year, income from exits amounted to several billion rubles (3.7 billion rubles - leads RBC data).

About import substitution

There are the right sensible slogans, but there is real life. Our competitors have long and long worked with Russian companies; at all levels of management, they understand who makes decisions, how they are made, and other details.

Nevertheless, the result: last year, the company went from almost zero figures to [revenue] of more than 6 billion rubles. This year there will be over 8 billion rubles.

I do not agree with the fact that Russia is lagging behind in all directions, although the chances of a breakthrough are not equally high everywhere. For example, domestic microelectronics is developing quite successfully, although we are unlikely to be able to catch up with the next generation of technologies. At the same time, there are very serious groundwork in certain areas. In the area related to the production of modern materials, we have already had a real world-class breakthrough. If we are able to complete our project, then we are talking about a company that, by market capitalization, will be at the level of Gazprom.

About effective ways to invest

[We] came to the conclusion that, in relation to direct investment, funds for us are about as a university in relation to high school. In this junction, we spent hundreds of hours, filled many cones. If you aim at a foundation, you need to go through school. And we have passed, making investments with balance. We made mistakes, but managed to get out - got to the profit, and for the second year in a row. When you have proved that you can work with projects, the second step is to present it to potential co-investors, for whom the main thing is results, not promises. Exactly what happened with us. Therefore, the transfer to the funds is the core of the very second investment period.

The current situation significantly complicates the solution of technological problems. Nevertheless, the situation does not break them: we do not have a single project that would collapse because of the existence of sanctions. More difficult - yes, slower - yes, there were failures somewhere last year. At the same time, we do not abandon our strategy and understand exactly how to implement it.

About own funds

First of all, we already have, as I said, created funds. We have partners, including Chinese companies. For example, one of our partners is a university, under whose management assets worth over $ 200 billion. They came to us with the idea of ​​creating a joint fund, because they need internationalization, which means a foreign partner.

For example, [with Vladimir Yevtushenkov from AFK Sistema] we together created a foundation . He entrusted his private funds, which were “mixed” with our public money, under joint management.

The company to be created will specialize in high technology investments. Other details of the representatives of “Rosnano” and AFK “System” do not disclose. According to the source of RBC, close to Rosnano, it is about $ 80–85 million. The final volume will be “a little more,” said a source familiar with the details of the creation of the fund. The first transactions may occur before the end of the year, says one of the interlocutors of RBC.

About his request to allocate 89 billion rubles for the Russian-Indian fund

First of all, I want to say nothing about this . Imagine that this money will not be in any form, let's completely forget about them. We have a document approved by the board of directors and approved by the government. This is a long-term business plan until 2020.

There is a financial model inside it, according to which Rosnano has sufficient grounds for attracting foreign investment for the following periods, there are balances at the end of the year, which act as a guaranteed airbag, which has no failures, and so on.

In this document there is no attraction whatsoever in any form — neither budget allocations, nor funds from the national welfare fund, there is nothing of that. There is only a clear strategy that we are moving forward. And an idea appears next to the strategy: so far this is the early stage of this idea called India. It is not a secret that Russia and India have serious contacts just in the field of high technologies.

There is an instruction from the president to work out the request, which is being done by the relevant ministries, departments, and administration. Both our companies and technology partners are involved in the study.

On combining innovation development institutions

You know, this is like in Soviet times the idea of ​​consolidating collective farms - the unbundling of collective farms. No one is going to enlarge all our collective farms now, as far as I know. It is about something else: to create in the government a so-called project office, which will, in a sense, be the customer or coordinator of existing innovation development institutes - Skolkovo , RVC , us, our other colleagues. I think this is quite a reasonable desire.

Still, development institutions were not created at one point in time, each of them has its own tasks a little ... It seems that there is a need to coordinate us all more strictly. But I’m not looking at it from my own position, but looking from the position of the government. Perhaps it is reasonable, we are not its opponents. Another thing - if you get to the idea of ​​all together to merge, mix, it will definitely be the beginning of the end. But, fortunately, I repeat, nobody is moving this way.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia have different positions on the reform of innovative development institutions. The Ministry of Finance proposes to concentrate most of their functions on the basis of the Skolkovo Foundation, by joining the funds of the Russian Venture Company (RVC), and also by moving the office of the Foundation for Assisting the Development of Small Enterprises in the Scientific and Technical Sphere (Bortnik Foundation).

At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development considers that it is necessary to preserve certain institutions by type of financial support, and proposes to make the status of a resident of an innovation center accessible to companies from other technology parks.

“I would not exclude both associations and, possibly, the liquidation of separate institutions,” said Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich at the end of January. Therefore, the assumption that some organizations will cease to exist as separate institutions is still in force.