PricewaterhouseCoopers cites the ˆ234-million sale of Kommersant Publishing House as one of the largest deals on the European publishing market.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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PwC Overlooks Major Technology Deals in Russia
PricewaterhouseCoopers released an annual report on mergers and acquisitions for technology industry last week, listing 176 European deals worth ˆ43 billion for 2006. The ˆ234-million sale of Kommersant Publishing House is the only Russian deal covered by PwC. Nonetheless, the share of Russia in the total volume of mergers and acquisitions is at least 6 percent, Russian experts estimate.
The year 2006 continued the trend of increasing mergers and acquisitions on the European media market, writers of M&A Insights say. The deal volume grew 12 percent, to ˆ43 billion in 2006 as mega-deals remained “a key feature of the technological sector” with 18 ˆ1 billion-plus deals recorded in 2006.
Russian analysts estimate the volume of mergers and acquisitions on the Russian technology market at $2-2.5 billion in 2006, which is roughly 6 percent of the total sum cited by PwC in its report. However, the only Russian deal that has entered the list of PwC is Alisher Usmanov’s purchase of Kommersant Publishing House for ˆ234 million from former owner Badri Patarkatsishvili, which is cited as one of the largest deals on the European publishing market.
PwC recorded as little as 19 deals with online companies in 2006, leaving unnoticed the sale of Ramber by Prof-Media for $250 million and the purchase of 30 percent in the Mail.ru portal by South Africa’s Naspers.
Experts note that the deal volume on the technology market is likely to remain high in several years to come. “Recent deals shows that the technology market is very attractive as a business,” says Andrey Zagorsky, head of the RAInKo investment company. “On the other hand, these pre-election years also boost the purchase and sale of media assets.”
The deal volume on the Russian technology market could have been higher, experts note. But the most expensive media assets are still managed by the state and are not to be sold.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 05, 2007
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