#6347 Day in progress
[Second Issue of the Day]
#7
Izvestia
July 10, 2002
GUSINSKY HAS MADE $50 MILLION
Update on Gazprom, Gazprom-Media, and former oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky
Author: Yekaterina Maslova
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
ESTIMATES OF THE REAL MARKET VALUE OF FORMER ASSETS OF GAZPROM-MEDIA VARY; BORIS JORDAN SEEM TO HAVE A CHANCE TO MANAGE THIS BUSINESS ALL BY HIMSELF. GAZPROM-MEDIA HAS ACQUIRED ITS LIABILITIES TO THE MEDIA EMPIRE OF VLADIMIR GUSINSKY, FORMER OLIGARCH.
Gazprom-Media has acquired all Vladimir Gusinsky's shares and purchased all liabilities of its companies to the media empire of the former Russian oligarch. The value of the deal is being kept confidential, by agreement between both sides. Unofficially, the deal is valued at $50 million. Gazprom has thus obtained sole control over its media assets and an opportunity to sell them in a holding, which is as a matter of fact more profitable than selling them by shares.
Commenting on the transaction, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said: "We hope that consolidation of the equity capital creates more favorable conditions for negotiating with the potential investors further on," having especially stressed the fact that acquisition of all liabilities of its companies before Gusinsky's companies is rather important for Gazprom-Media.
Director General of Gazprom-Media Boris Jordan has mentioned that the transaction has considerably raised the capitalization of Gazprom- Media. "Consolidation of the equity capital promotes to consolidation of the holding's financial state. Gazprom-Media's management will continue developing the holding's companies as economically efficient and independent mass media," Jordan stated.
Vladimir Gusinsky has also commented on the results of the transaction. "I'm proud for the fact that in our due time we managed to create an independent media group, which succeeded in achieving the leading position in Russia. It is my hope that the current group's management and primarily the management of NTV will resume this tradition," he said.
Financial consultant of Gazprom-Media, investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstain has evaluated the assets of Gazprom's media empire. The evaluation was accomplished by March 1, 2002, but its results haven't yet been published. According to the Western assessor, Gazprom's assets are valued at more than $300 million, some sources reported. According to Gazprom-Media's former Director General Alfred Koch, the assets should have been valued at $400-700 million.
Gazprom-Media has stakes in NTV and 23 other companies of Gusinsky's former empire. According to Western valuations, Gusinsky's debts to Gazprom amount to about $1 billion. Initially, Gazprom's Board of Directors intended to determine the future of the media assets as far back as January 15, but the discussion was postponed a few times. The Kremlin made it clear to Gazprom's management that it had no political concern in transactions with the company's media assets and proposed the top-managers to resolve this problem solely from the commercial approach independently, Izvestia's sources said. Following a collapse of the negotiations on the purchase of NTV (led by Ted Turner, who wrote to Vladimir Putin demanding freedom of expression guarantees for the TV channel) there have been no serious offers to purchase Gazprom's media empire or any of its parts.
NTV's present Director General Boris Jordan, who doesn't conceal his desire to become the owner of this TV company (Gusinsky owned 30% of NTV's shares) can be considered an exception. By the way, Jordan is gaining a good chance of taking advantage of the results of this transaction.
Since no one wishing to acquire Gazprom's media group is in sight, even after Gusinsky's final withdrawal from the media business, Jordan will have an opportunity to manage the assets all by himself, almost indefinitely.
(Translated by Andrei Ryabochkin)
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