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Gazprom Media Watches RuTube
The Gazprom Media holding is beginning to invest in the Internet. It is now in negotiations for the purchase of the video-exchange portal RuTube, which its owners are willing for $5-10 million. RuTube producer Askar Tuganbaev said that there are several potential investors in the site. “Among them are private persons, the Mangrove Capital Partners venture fund and Gazprom Media, which is most likely purchaser,” Tuganbaev said.
RuTube is the analog of the American YouTube. Videos can be uploaded to the site for general viewing. It is visited by 150,000 unique users per day who watch 20 million videos per month. RuTube is owned by its founders Oleg Volobuev and Mikhail Paulkin.
OAO Gazprom Media owns controlling packages in NTV and TNT television channels, NTV-Plus satellite television and five radio stations, including Ekho Moskvy. It owns the Seven Days publishing company, the NTV-Kino film production company, the October movie theater in Moscow and the Crystal Palace in St. Petersburg. Its main shareholder is Gazprombank. According to the bank, Gazprom Media's proceeds in 2006 were over $883 million, with a net profit of $129.4 million. According to Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the capitalization of Gazprom Media is $7.5 billion.
If Gazprom Media concludes the deal, it will be its premier on the Internet. A source there said that about $100 million has been dedicated to Internet investments in the company's budget for next year. Gazprom Media is making a late entry into the market. Analysts predict that the media holding will buy several sites with the expectation that some of them sill become popular. They also say that RuTube is highly overpriced at $5 million.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of July 09, 2007
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