Alexander Rodnyansky, who has led STS since 2002, will now get creative.
Photo: Valery Levitin
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Rodnyansky Simplified Job Title
Alexander Rodnyansky, who has been head of television channel STS since 2002 and head of STS Media since 2004, is leaving the positions of general director of both companies. He will be replaced at STS Media by Anton Kudryashov, former general director of NTV Plus and founder of Afisha Publishing House. Kudryashov will be called on to make major changes in the structure of the companies’ management, whose capitalization, once reaching $4.7 billion, has been falling, along with STS’s rating.
Petr Aven cochairman of the board of STS Media and president of Alfa Bank, introduced the 42-year-old Kudryshov at yesterday’s board session. The changes will be officially announced today. Sources say that STS Media shareholders, especially Alfa Group, have decided to take closer control of the media company’s finances and to separate creative and managerial functions. Rodnyansky, who raised the level of STS and founded STS Media (which launched the Home Channel in 2005 and bought DTV this year, and owns channels in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) and conducted its IPO, will now be involved exclusively in the creative and strategic development of the companies. He will remain president of STS Media and will sit on the boards of dircetors of both companies.
In the company’s May 2006 IPO, 27.2 million shares were sold at $14 apiece, raising $380.5 million. Now 39.6 percent of shares belong to the Swedish Modern Times Group, 26 percent to Alfa Group, just over 6 percent to Leonard Blavatnik’s Access Industries and 3 percent to Baring Vostok Partners. Rodnyansky owns about 5 percent. The remaining 20.4 percent is traded on NASDAQ. The company’s receipts in 2007 were $472 million and net profit $136 million.
Rodnyansky came from the Ukrainian 1 + 1 channel to helm STS. From 2002 to 2006, the Russian channel’s ratings rose steadily. According to TNS Gallup Media, the channel’s share was 9-10 percent. In 2005, its serial Don’t Be Born Beautiful created a furor on the market and made the channel a competitor with top-rated NTV. Then its share began to fall and is now at 8.5 percent. TNT, which has a 7-percent share, has been displacing it.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 24, 2008
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