«CTC Media» has reorganized its business, and as the result the Media Holding’s Russian companies passed into the ownership of CTC Investments, as Sostav.ru informs.
We shall recall that previously all the assets and even the parent companies of the group’s channels were owned by CTC Media Inc., registered in the USA, DE. It doesn’t comply with the amendments adopted by the State Duma in October 2014 to the law On Mass Media, according to which the share of foreign capital is limited to 20%, and not 50%, as it was before. The changes will come into effect as of next year.
To comply with the Russian laws the Media Holding will be required to shut down the US CTC Media Inc. for CCC Investments to become the head structure of the holding.
Earlier, the sources of Vedomosti edition reported that Rostelecom had been negotiating to acquire CTC Media, since 75% of CTC Media’s shares were owned by foreign companies at that moment, i.e. the Swedish Modern Times Group (39%), as well as foreign funds and investment companies that had bought the shares through NASDAQ. 25.4% of the shares also refer de jure to the Cyprian Company Telcrest, owned by Russian beneficiaries like Yury Kovalchuk and other joint holders.
It became known still in March about the sale of MTG’s share in CTC Media. At that time the sources of Vedomosti informed that UBS investment bank providing advisory services to the company, sent out offers to large investors, inviting them to participate in the capital investment of the Media Holding.
It became known later about the interest in acquiring business, shown by several companies, and Rostelecom was named among them. But the experts expect that MTG is unlikely to succeed in completing the transaction before the end of the year, due to the peculiarities of the operator’s management.
The analysts also forecast that the Media Holding’s shares may significantly decrease due to the slump in advertising market by 21%, as Mediasat reported before.
On top of that, the revenue and net profit of CTC Media dropped by 58% and 73% at the beginning of this year, up to $79.1 million and $ 8.4 million, respectively.
