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bne Invest
May 3, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 11
Russian HeadHunter valued at $675mn ahead of IPO
Leading Russian online job search portal Head- Hunter is valued at $550mn-675mn ahead of the IPO of 32% of its capital as ADS (American De- pository Shares) on Nasdaq, the company said on April 26, announcing a price range of $11-13.5 per share or $179mn-220mn for the whole placement.
The underwriters of the issue Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, VTB Capital, BofA Merril Lynch, and Sberbank CIB will also retain a 30-day option on 5% of the company's shares.
While not a single IPO or SPO was seen in 2018, since the start of this year a number of companies have announced deals including Polyus Gold which raised $390mn from a placement.
However, the SPO by meat major Cherkizovo has failed, as reported by bne IntelliNews, while rail
operator RusTransCom that announced IPO plans later called off the offering.
The shares of the HeadHunter will be sold by the Highworld Investments (59.99% of the shares), ELQ Investors VIII (investment division of Goldman Sachs Group, holds 40%). Reportedly, the place- ment is planned in the end of May - beginning of June, Vedomosti daily reproted on April 26 citing unnamed investment banking sources.
HeadHunter is the leader in the online recruit- ment segment in Russia with over 50% market share as well as in several neighboring Russian- speaking countries. In 2018 the classifieds market grew by 28% to RUB10.3bn, according to J'Son & Partners estimates cited by Vedomosti daily.
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Record profit for Russian Novatek in 1Q19 on Arctic LNG-2 deals
Russia’s privately owned Novatek is on a tear after first quarter profits exploded, rising 666% year-on-year to $5.8bn under IFRS accounts, the company reported on April 26.
Profits were driven by its burgeoning LNG busi- ness and several big investment deals. Prof-
its grew even faster q/q, up a staggering 725%. The company’s CEO and majority owner Leonid Mikhelson was also recently named Russia’s richest man by Forbes Russia with an estimated fortune of $24bn.
While the company is privately owned, the Kremlin is using Novatek to expand Russia’s LNG business to keep itself in the gas business, as countries around the world, but especially in Europe, seek to break their dependence on piped gas. Russia has been producing roughly 10mn tonnes of
LNG a year, making it a minor player in the LNG game, but hopes to increase production to 80mn tonnes in the foreseeable future, which would make it a major player. Novatek is also exploiting huge untapped hydrocarbon deposits in Russia’s section of the Artic.
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