Page 113 - RusRPTApr20

came broadly in line with consensus. More importantly, based on our calculations, the guidance implies 2020F EV / EBITDA of about 10x under a conservative assumption that the value of the company's stakes in the O2O and eCommerce joint ventures is zero. This does not look demanding to us, and sets the scene for Mail.ru's re-rating, in our view. Meanwhile, the company also announced that its BoD was actively considering a secondary listing in Moscow as early as this year, which could serve as the key near-term trigger, we think.
Kinopoisk HD, the streaming service of Russian internet major Yandex, struck a first book deal on all the projects of the production company Mediaslovo for an undisclosed amount, Vedomosti daily reported on March 13 citing representatives of all companies. As followed by bne IntelliNews, throughout 2019 the online Russian media market was in focus following Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. and potential IPOs. The streaming market jumped 1.5-fold last year to RUB17bn ($232mn). Yandex acquired cinema information portal Kinopoisk in 2013, and span it off into a paid streaming service in 2018. Currently the service has over 1mn paid subscribers, and started to produce original content in 2019.
Russian job search portal HeadHunter reported 23% year-on-year and 27% y/y revenue growth in 4Q19 and FY2019 respectively, with the top line growth decelerating slightly from 29% in 9M19 on the normalisation of the base effect. As reported by bne IntelliNews, in May 2020 HeadHunter carried out a successful IPO on NASDAQ that was ten times oversubscribed. However, shortly after the IPO some analysts saw the shares as overhyped. HeadHunter's Ebitda was up 22%, making a 50% margin (respectively 38% and 50.5% in 2019), with net income up 27%.
Russia's largest e-commerce retailer Wildberries intends to sell the produce of self-employed individuals on its platform, Kommersant daily reported on March 2. The products would include artisanal apparel, footwear, accessories, and souvenirs. Kommersant notes AliExpress is using the same model of working with small self-employed producers as Russia’s online sites all move towards adding “market place” functionality to their sites to enable SMEs to reach their vast audiences. Part of this model is the online sites provide the logistics and payment services allowing small producers to focus fully on production and grow their businesses. Wildberries could increase the amount of its supplies by at least 3,000 by 2020 to a total of 18,000 due to the initiative, the company's representatives told the daily. However, quality control issues could complicate the adoption of such new sellers on the platform, analysts surveyed by the daily believe.
A former Russian cabinet minister, oligarch Roman Abramovich, and the COO of German fintech company Wirecard were all among the investors in Telegram’s $1.7bn initial coin offering (ICO), a previously unreported court document shows, according to CoinDesk. Tycoon Abramovich and former Minister of Open Government Affairs Mikhail Abyzov used offshore funds to buy tokens, known as grams, the document says. These big names’ involvement is the latest twist in the case brought against Telegram by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which claims the messaging app provider violated securities laws by failing to register its 2018 token sale. The names, along with the amounts each of them invested, were listed in an attachment to an expert report by Stephen McKeon, a University of Oregon professor who was hired by Telegram to write an analysis of the Telegram Open Network (TON) blockchain project.
113 RUSSIA Country Report April 2020 www.intellinews.com