African investor bought 30% Mail.Ru
Mail.ru portal has acquired a new strategic investor. As it became known yesterday, Naspers Limited’s media group made a deal to acquire 30% of Port.ru, which owns the portal, and this share cost the buyer $ 165 million. Naspers operates in the field of electronic and print communications around the world ( and also in Greece, China, the Netherlands, the USA, Thailand), and, in particular, it has Tencent , a major Asian Internet player, owning QQ, the most popular Internet pager in China, in its structure. As emphasized in Mail.ru, there is the greatest interest in sharing experience with this group company.
From the message of the Mail.ru press service it follows that the shares were acquired from Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management direct investment funds, which remained Port.ru shareholders. Each of the funds is currently holding a package, less than a controlling one, they write to Vedomosti, citing a source in investment circles. According to the source, now Digital Sky Technologies (previously owned a controlling 52% stake in Mail.ru) and Tiger Global Management have about 60% of the shares. It is not yet known whether any of the current shareholders has an option to further repurchase shares.
Naspers has long been interested in Russian assets of its profile - in September 2006, information appeared that this media group began to negotiate with the owners of Promsvyazkapital about the purchase of 25% of the publishing house “Arguments and Facts”. Earlier, according to Kommersant , there was an attempt to buy the SK-Press publishing house, but Naspers then abandoned this idea.
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Analysts of "Finam" point to the custom of the South African media holding "to acquire initially non-controlling packages." "Naspers is active in emerging markets, but prefers a phased approach that reduces risks," explained Finam spokesman Vladislav Kochetkov. "If the investment is successful, then Naspers, it is quite possible that they will try to gain control of Mail.ru." The sale of shares by the former holders Kochetkov explained this: “For Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management, the purchase of Mail.ru was a direct investment. Obviously, the funds found the offer of Naspers attractive enough for them, deciding to leave the project for investment in more dynamic assets. Still, Mail.ru is a mature company, young projects increase the cost at a higher rate. ”
The amount of the transaction is estimated differently by experts. But most of them agree that the acquisition of large stakes in Russian Internet companies by strategic investors will not significantly affect the market. Mail.ru itself speaks of this: “The appearance of Naspers among the shareholders will not lead to changes in the company's operating activities, ” General Director Dmitry Grishin told Vzglyad . “The appearance of another major shareholder should not affect the company's activities,” Vice President Anna Artamonova confirms his words.
However, in the pricing issue, as noted, the opinions of experts differ. Lev Glazer, head of the online advertising agency Adwatch , was confident that Mail.ru costs one and a half to two times more. The experts of Finam believe that such a package Mail.ru could be sold more expensive, and they estimate the whole company at $ 600 million.
Competitors say that the amount of the transaction meets the realities of the market. As noted by the general director of Yandex, Arkady Volozh, the portal received a “good rating commensurate with Rambler , and how analysts evaluate Yandex.”
According to Mail.ru statistics for December 2006, the portal’s resources have an audience of more than 24 million unique visitors per month, including 21.5 million visitors from Russia. The monthly number of pages viewed exceeds 2 billion.
From the message of the Mail.ru press service it follows that the shares were acquired from Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management direct investment funds, which remained Port.ru shareholders. Each of the funds is currently holding a package, less than a controlling one, they write to Vedomosti, citing a source in investment circles. According to the source, now Digital Sky Technologies (previously owned a controlling 52% stake in Mail.ru) and Tiger Global Management have about 60% of the shares. It is not yet known whether any of the current shareholders has an option to further repurchase shares.
Naspers has long been interested in Russian assets of its profile - in September 2006, information appeared that this media group began to negotiate with the owners of Promsvyazkapital about the purchase of 25% of the publishing house “Arguments and Facts”. Earlier, according to Kommersant , there was an attempt to buy the SK-Press publishing house, but Naspers then abandoned this idea.
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Analysts of "Finam" point to the custom of the South African media holding "to acquire initially non-controlling packages." "Naspers is active in emerging markets, but prefers a phased approach that reduces risks," explained Finam spokesman Vladislav Kochetkov. "If the investment is successful, then Naspers, it is quite possible that they will try to gain control of Mail.ru." The sale of shares by the former holders Kochetkov explained this: “For Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management, the purchase of Mail.ru was a direct investment. Obviously, the funds found the offer of Naspers attractive enough for them, deciding to leave the project for investment in more dynamic assets. Still, Mail.ru is a mature company, young projects increase the cost at a higher rate. ”
The amount of the transaction is estimated differently by experts. But most of them agree that the acquisition of large stakes in Russian Internet companies by strategic investors will not significantly affect the market. Mail.ru itself speaks of this: “The appearance of Naspers among the shareholders will not lead to changes in the company's operating activities, ” General Director Dmitry Grishin told Vzglyad . “The appearance of another major shareholder should not affect the company's activities,” Vice President Anna Artamonova confirms his words.
However, in the pricing issue, as noted, the opinions of experts differ. Lev Glazer, head of the online advertising agency Adwatch , was confident that Mail.ru costs one and a half to two times more. The experts of Finam believe that such a package Mail.ru could be sold more expensive, and they estimate the whole company at $ 600 million.
Competitors say that the amount of the transaction meets the realities of the market. As noted by the general director of Yandex, Arkady Volozh, the portal received a “good rating commensurate with Rambler , and how analysts evaluate Yandex.”
According to Mail.ru statistics for December 2006, the portal’s resources have an audience of more than 24 million unique visitors per month, including 21.5 million visitors from Russia. The monthly number of pages viewed exceeds 2 billion.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/4992/
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