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Telecom
April 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
Castle). Sberbank CIB estimated that advertising revenues of Mail.ru grew ahead of the market in the reporting quarter.
"On the positive side, user engagement at VK is continuing to grow as expressed by a growing number of daily comments and stories, as well as videos viewed," Sberbank CIB commented reminding that Mai.ru expects social commerce to become a key element of VKontakte going forward.
The company expects 2019 revenue growth of 18- 22% to RUB85-88bn and Ebitda of RUB32-34bn (under new IFRS16 standards). Sberbank rates Mail.ru as Buy with a target price of $40.66 per share. At the same time UralSib Capital sees 2019
guidance as overly aggressive, with high risk of missing out and thus recommends to Sell Mail.ru.
In the end of 2018 the shareholder structure
of Mail.ru was reshuffled, with one of Russia's richest men Alisher Usmanov no longer having
a majority voting stake through his USM holding, transferring the control to Mai.ru management to shield the company from potential sanctions.
USM controlled Mail.ru through a joint venture MF Technologies with mobile operator MegaFon and Russia's third largest bank Gazprombank. MegaFon recently said it will buyout shares
and go private, as it prepares to complete its transformation "into a digital business in the heart of the new digital ecosystem in Russia."
Russian mobile major MegaFon calls $1.bn buyout, to delist from LSE IntelliNews Pro
Russian mobile major MegaFon plans to delist its shares and GDRs from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and will make a buyout offer to minority shareholders almost fully wiping out its freefloat, the company said on July 13.
MegaFon listed on the LSE back in 2012, making one of the largest Russian international IPOs at the time. In 2018, remaining public is "not among [the] company's priorities," MegaFon commented, as it prepares to complete its transformation "into a digital business in the heart of the new digital ecosystem in Russia."
The buyout offer for ordinary shares and the GDRs of total of 20.8% of the company's capital is priced at $9.75 per share, with the buyout to cost a total of $1.2bn-$1.3bn.
Previously the company indicated that it will be more focused on growth than on pleasing
minorities. In May MegaFon recommended the company pay no dividends for 2017 to save cash for investment and costs related to the Yarovaya law on data storage. The board of directors already waived dividends in March, which was unexpected for investors and triggered a sell-off in the London-listed stock at the time.
Still, the buyout price suggests a handsome premium to minority shareholders. "We deem the news positive as the purchasing price implies an 8% premium to Friday's [June 13] close [price]," Aton Equity commented on July 16.
Main shareholders of MegaFon are USM of Russian billionaire and high tech investor Alisher Usmanov with a 56.32% stake, state bank Gazprombank with 18.79%, and MICL with a 3.92% stake. MegaFon, in turn, is one of the shareholders in internet major Mail.Ru.