On Friday, May 13, RBC reported that virtually all top managers responsible for editorial policy were leaving the holding. “Lenta.ru” understands what is happening in one of the largest media holdings in the country and what preceded the departure of the editorial management.
What's happening
The holding officially announced that the chief editor of projects is Elizaveta Osetinskaya, Chief Editor news agency Roman Badanin and the editor-in-chief of the newspaper of the same name Maxim Solyus are leaving RBC.
The general director of the holding, Nikolai Molibog, explained this by saying that the opinion of the editorial bosses about the future of RBC did not coincide with the position of their leaders. "IN Lately“We talked a lot about how to further develop RBC, and in these conversations we could not come to a consensus on some important issues,” he officially stated. Therefore, we agreed to separate.
It has not yet been announced who will take their place. Following the departure of top executives, some employees of the joint editorial office of RBC announced their intention to resign on social networks.
After the announcement of the departure of top management, RBC shares rose in price on the stock exchange.
What happened before
In April, it became known that in the fall of 2016, Elizaveta Osetinskaya would retire while studying at Stanford University in the Innovations in Journalism program. It was assumed that the training would last one academic year, after which the editor-in-chief would continue to manage the editorial offices of RBC projects.
However, later, on April 20, the media holding announced that Osetinskaya would step away from management a few months before her academic leave - after the May holidays. Representatives of the holding claimed that her absence would be temporary. It was reported that the management of editorial projects in her absence would be carried out by the editors-in-chief, including Badanin and Solyus.
How Osetinskaya's vacation was linked to searches of Mikhail Prokhorov
The official news of the top manager’s premature leave appeared almost simultaneously with reports of searches in the Onexim group, the structure that controls RBC and other companies of Mikhail Prokhorov. At the same time, inspectors did not come to RBC itself, a representative of the media holding told Lenta.ru.
The media wrote that the searches at Onexim may have political overtones: the authorities are allegedly trying to put pressure on Prokhorov to sell RBC. According to another version, they are trying to force the billionaire to sell the energy company Quadra. Shortly before joining Onexim law enforcement A story about violations in the work of Quadra was shown on TV. It was also claimed in the media that RBC, which publishes materials about Panamanian offshore companies and investigations affecting large businessmen and high-ranking officials, ignores Prokhorov’s energy company, which is also connected to offshore companies.
What they say in the Kremlin
The Russian President's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, has repeatedly denied media reports about the Kremlin's pressure on Prokhorov because of RBC articles that allegedly irritated the authorities. Peskov said that he communicates with Osetinskaya, as well as with many other media leaders. Shortly before her departure, the press secretary of the head of state met with her, but, according to Peskov, they did not discuss Osetinskaya’s leave.
Is Prokhorov selling or not selling to RBC?
At the end of April, the media reported that after the searches, Prokhorov was seriously thinking about selling both RBC and Quadra. The fact that a businessman from time to time negotiates the sale of a media holding is essentially nothing new.
It is known that he has been looking for a buyer since at least August 2014 (although the entrepreneur’s representatives denied this information). Kommersant then wrote that media platforms were necessary for Prokhorov when he was involved in politics: he was the leader of the Right Cause party, participated in the presidential race, and then headed the Civic Platform. But in 2014, the businessman retired from the party, and subsequently spoke out for its complete liquidation.
Photo: Ekaterina Chesnokova / RIA Novosti
After unpromising attempts to make a career as a politician, Prokhorov’s need for media assets disappeared, moreover, RBC worked exclusively to cover losses, and the shareholder had to invest considerable funds in it. On this moment The holding's debt is $220 million. However, the billionaire liked what RBC journalists did.
How they tried to change the holding
A little over a year ago, RBC announced “Strategy 360”, within the framework of which the holding should continue to live. The initiator and ideological inspirer of the document was Nikolai Molibog. “RBC’s goal is to maintain revenue growth rates at a level not lower than the market average in the future. To achieve this goal, RBC plans to combine organic growth and profitable acquisitions in the fastest growing media segment - the Internet. RBC sees its key operational goal as ensuring high popularity of RBC resources among the Russian-speaking audience in the CIS countries and around the world in general. The main task, from the point of view of financial management, is to increase the profitability of the business,” the company’s website says.
However, for the two years during which Molibog led the company, RBC generated only losses: 1.97 billion rubles in 2014 and the same amount in 2015. The holding stayed afloat thanks to the sale of assets: it sold the Salon publishing house, the RBC Money payment system and Utro.ru.
Photo: Sergey Kiselev / Kommersant
There were also acquisitions. In 2014, the company bought the integrator Public.ru for 19 million rubles (and 200 thousand euros to diversify revenue streams). The project was entrusted to oversee the digital director of RBC business projects, Dmitry Kharitonov. Subsequently, as the source says, all activities on the project were frozen. The losses of Utro.ru alone, sold for only 30 million rubles, amounted to at least 100 million rubles in revenue per year. At least, this is the amount the publication brought in in 2013, and its daily traffic reached 400-500 thousand visitors per day.
RBC is not Prokhorov’s first ambitious but never realized project. In 2014, the entrepreneur gave the state, for 1 euro, the innovative Yo-mobile project, on which he previously had high hopes and in which he invested 150 million euros.
To whom does it sell, if it sells?
Sources of Gazeta.Ru call the National Media Group of Yuri Kovalchuk the most likely buyer of the media holding. IN different time The media claimed that Arkady Rotenberg, Vladimir Lisin, the Gazprom Media holding, co-owner of the Ilim group Zakhar Smushkin and the owner of Komsomolskaya Pravda Grigory Berezkin were vying for RBC.
Another version refuting previous assumptions
A top manager of a large Russian media holding told Lenta.ru that the sale of RBC has already taken place. This happened before it became known academic leave Ossetian. He, however, did not specify whether her decision to leave was her own or whether the new owner insisted on it.
Illustration copyright Alexandr Shcherbak/TASS
The owner of the group of companies UST and the tabloid "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Grigory Berezkin bought billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov from the structures controlling interest RBC holding. The parties announced the closing of the transaction. This may lead to a change in editorial policy, sources told the BBC: the previous one did not suit the Kremlin.
RBC is one of the largest private media holdings in Russia, operating since 1993. It includes a website, newspaper, magazine, TV channel, hosting service and several services.
The RBC website is one of the most visited and quoted media outlets on the Internet. In April, RBC editorial co-head Elizaveta Golikova reported that in March 2017, RBC's audience exceeded 23 million unique visitors.
Berezkin's ESN group owns oil terminals and energy traders. UST also owns a controlling stake in the publishing house Komsomolskaya Pravda, a newspaper that Russian President Vladimir Putin called his favorite.
Why did Prokhorov sell the publication?
Prokhorov made the decision to sell the holding under pressure from the presidential administration, according to a BBC source in the holding’s management and an interlocutor close to the presidential administration (both asked for anonymity, as they are not authorized to communicate with the press on this topic).
“He resisted for a long time, but he was convinced. I can’t say that he is very happy - the decision was made under pressure,” says one of the BBC’s interlocutors.
Businessman Prokhorov, ranked 13th in the ranking richest people Russia, according to Forbes, has owned a controlling stake in RBC since 2010. Since then, Prokhorov has managed to go the way of a public politician - to become the head of the Right Cause party, and then leave it. In 2012, he stood as a candidate for the Russian presidential elections.
At the end of 2014, RBC relaunched the website, newspaper and RBC magazine, and the publications began publishing investigative journalism. In 2014, the publication published an investigation into the number of Russian military personnel in southeastern Ukraine. And in 2015 - about Katerina Tikhonova, whom Reuters later called Putin’s daughter (the president himself never confirmed or denied that this is his daughter’s name).
As Vedomosti wrote, it was precisely such materials from RBC that caused “very strong irritation” among officials and “put pressure on Prokhorov, demanding to stop such disgrace.”
The RBC television channel and website actively covered protest rallies in 2017. In terms of audience coverage, the private holding company competed with the largest state media. For example, in March 2017, according to the Liveinternet counter, the RBC audience was 26.5 million people, the RIA Novosti audience was 27.4 million.
All this caused dissatisfaction with the presidential administration, say two sources of the BBC Russian Service close to the management of RBC and confirmed by BBC interlocutors close to the Kremlin.
“Very powerful” pressure allegedly comes from the deputy head of the presidential administration, Alexei Gromov (he is responsible in the Kremlin, among other things, for information policy), vc.ru reported in April, citing its sources.
Interlocutors of the BBC Russian Service within the holding itself agree with this.
RBC press secretary Egor Timofeev refused to answer the question whether the editorial office experienced pressure from the presidential administration.
The Kremlin is dissatisfied with the fact that on the eve presidential elections In 2018, such an influential media outlet published materials that were inconvenient for the Kremlin, two employees of the holding reported in conversations with the BBC. “Gromov wants to turn off the Internet,” says one of them.
Presidential elections have only background significance, says Tatyana Stanovaya, an expert at the Center for Political Technologies. Against the backdrop of elections, elites are fighting for resources and powers, raising the stakes, but decisive role The accumulated dissatisfaction of the security forces played a role in the story with RBC.
“A change in the owner of the holding was a matter of time. Changing the editorial board a year ago was a half-hearted solution for intra-elite hawks like [head of the Russian National Guard] Viktor Zolotov, who are dissatisfied with RBC’s publications. And they are not inclined to such compromises,” the political scientist shares his opinion. According to her, security officials in power see RBC as a threat to the legitimacy of power and the weakening of the regime.
The BBC was unable to obtain a comment from Gromov himself.
Putin, answering a question from RBC about pressure on the holding from the Kremlin, replied: “I don’t know about that.” He added that “such media are needed.”
“I watch it myself, I like it,” the president said after the Direct Line, talking to reporters. According to Putin, he did not discuss the possible deal with any of its participants, but did not rule out the possibility of meeting with Prokhorov in the near future.
Will anything change in the publication?
“Under him, there won’t be anything like this [coverage of protests]. It will be like Russia-24,” an official who has known the businessman for a long time shares his opinion about the new owner of RBC.
RBC should be a business publication and write specifically about business - this approach to the editorial policy of the new owner of the holding is described by two acquaintances of Berezkin. Priority news for the publication are those that can affect the ruble exchange rate, one of them describes the attitude of a businessman to covering topics.
According to them, Berezkin also drew attention to the excessive politicization of the publication.
Before negotiations on the purchase, a content analysis of the publication’s publications was allegedly carried out. Based on them, it seems to have turned out that the mention of Alexei Navalny is comparable to the number of messages about the country’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, suggests one of the BBC’s interlocutors (according to the google.com search engine, over the past month there have been 380 messages about Navalny on the site, about Medvedev 430 messages).
The presidential administration considered such news coverage to be disproportionate, say BBC interlocutors close to the presidential administration and the holding’s management (both asked for anonymity, since the study was non-public and they were not authorized to communicate with the press), Berezkin with this approach I supposedly agree, they claim.
Berezkin himself spoke publicly about his attitude to the content of publications only once in an interview with vc.ru. “You can write the truth while offending, or you can write the truth without offending people,” he explained. Berezkin did not specify whether people were offended by previous RBC publications. But he assured that there would definitely be no censorship in the publication.
The new owner does not plan to change the holding team, Vedomosti wrote with reference to two acquaintances of Berezkin. According to the newspaper, Berezkin met with the general director of the holding Nikolai Molibog back in April and invited him to continue leading RBC.
The editorial team, managed by Elizaveta Golikova and Igor Trosnikov, will also be offered to stay, sources told Vedomosti. Presumably, a meeting between Berezkin and the editorial management is scheduled for next week, according to two BBC interlocutors in the editorial office who are not authorized to communicate with the press.
The new owner of RBC Berezkin negotiated about working in the holding with Alexey Abakumov, who now holds the post of deputy general director of the Rumedia group (manages the radio station Business FM), sources in the management of the holding, who was not authorized to comment on the situation for the press, told the BBC.
It was allegedly discussed that he could take the post of general director or editor. Abakumov is a candidate of the presidential administration, which last summer recommended that RBC shareholders hire him, Vedomosti wrote, citing a source.
In the spring, Abakumov spoke about the need to change the editorial policy of the publication, says a BBC interlocutor familiar with Abakumov. Abakumov himself denied his involvement in processes related to the selection of journalists and the future of RBC.
A year after the searches
At RBC, the editorial leadership changed just a year ago. In mid-April 2016, the offices of Prokhorov’s companies were searched by the FSB and tax authorities. Dozhd's sources then said that the searches were happening due to pressure on the owner of the holding.
A month later, the editor-in-chief of the RBC newspaper Makism Solyus was fired. Reuters wrote then that the Kremlin had previously expressed complaints to Prokhorov and the management of the holding regarding the coverage of the Panama Papers scandal. The last straw for the Kremlin, the agency said, there was an article entitled “In front of the “Putin’s palace” near Gelendzhik they will start breeding oysters.”
After Solyus’s dismissal, editor-in-chief Elizaveta Osetinskaya and site editor-in-chief Roman Badanin left their posts. Following Osetinskaya and Badanin, most of the team of journalists who came with them, who had previously worked at Forbes, Vedomosti, Kommersant, etc., left RBC.
Badanin and Osetinskaya were replaced by Trosnikov and Golikova (co-heads of the editorial office). Before RBC, the new managers worked at Kommersant and then at TASS. Golikova’s phrase about “double solid” caused a great resonance during the first meeting of the new management with the editors (a transcript of the meeting was published by Meduza). These words were perceived by journalists as indicating a censorship framework.
Under the new leadership, investigations at RBC actually became fewer, and the publication no longer wrote its own texts about Putin’s family.
“There is no ban as such, and there never was, it’s just that the texts that are associated with it [Putin’s family] had to be seriously discussed before writing in order to assess the risks and prepare for the reaction of officials,” an RBC employee describes the principles of the publication’s work. He also notes that with the departure of many employees after the dismissal of Osetinskaya and Badanin in the editorial office for investigations, which became business card RBC, there weren't enough hands.
There was no pressure on the editors from the current owners of RBC regarding topics that can and cannot be covered, says a BBC interlocutor in the holding’s management.
Later, Vedomosti wrote about Prokhorov’s intention to sell Russian assets, including RBC. However, at the end of summer, the newspaper's sources said that there were no buyers for the holding.
Two of the publication’s interlocutors said that the businessman is ready to sell this asset to RBC for $250 million (including a debt of $200 million). The businessman sold shares in several companies, including Rusal and the development company OPIN.
Berezkin's interest in RBC became known at the end of April - then the RNS agency and the Vedomosti newspaper reported about it. Now the unified social tax and debt obligations of RBC PJSC, the transaction amount is not disclosed.
Berezkin, in response to all the BBC’s questions, sent a caricature of a Bosch painting with the caption “It’s just all depressing, some kind of unhealthy atmosphere.” He did not answer substantive questions.
The RBC TV channel is awaiting reforms. According to Lenta.ru's sources in the channel's management, the next TV season will see a format change. Apparently, there is no unity on this issue yet. According to some sources, RBC will abandon news broadcasting, liquidate the corresponding service and focus on talk shows; according to others, it will move away from the business concept and migrate to the socio-political segment, hoping to gather an audience confused by Dozhd. Still others say that the channel will continue its business course and follow the path of CNBC. Fourth - that all these are links in one chain and the channel will try to complete all these tasks. Lenta.ru understood the versions discussed in the holding company.
What awaits the channel
In the new television season, RBC, according to a source in its management, will move away from the news broadcasting model and eliminate the editorial office responsible for preparing and broadcasting news. It's about about the layoff of more than 100 employees. An interlocutor of Lenta.ru in the holding, who wished to remain anonymous, claims that from the new season, RBC will develop according to the model of the American business channel CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel).
The new concept has not yet been formed. So far, all we know is that starting in September, RBC will host a big evening talk show with invited guests. According to the source, the production of the new project may require additional investments, since the elimination of costs for the news service will not be able to compensate for the costs of a quality talk show. The channel has not received investment from shareholders for a long time.
RBC confirmed that the channel is indeed awaiting reform. The press service of the holding explained that the channel will not refuse news.
“This is what our viewers tune into RBC for. New shows will probably appear, but it’s too early to say which ones,” the media holding told Lenta.ru.
There are no plans for layoffs at the channel, RBC says, “although fewer employees and more money are always better than the other way around.” At the same time, several channel workers interviewed by Lenta.ru say that they are aware of the upcoming layoffs.
Why did Reut leave and what does reformatting have to do with it?
On June 22, Andrey Reut left the TV channel, having worked as editor-in-chief for about two years. As follows from the RBC release, he left at will. It is also reported that “he completed all the tasks assigned to him to reform the channel, achieved target indicators and now intends to take on new projects.”
According to Reut himself, during his work as editor-in-chief, RBC's audience grew by 10 million, the channel turned from loss to profit and maintained good advertising performance against the backdrop of a falling market.
“We have increased the volume of news broadcasting several times. We launched many projects aimed specifically at business. For example, a series of programs with leading businessmen. We gave them the opportunity to talk about what is truly important to them,” says Reut.
He refused to give a specific reason for his departure, adding that he was preparing new projects. I’m not ready to discuss a new place of work.
“The only thing I can say is that it will definitely be related to journalism. There are proposals, there are certain plans,” the former editor-in-chief told Lenta.ru.
An acquaintance of Reut, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, noted that the chief editor left the company due to differences in views with the holding’s management on the future of the channel. According to him, Reut believed that the channel should continue to develop as a news channel, adhere to an objective presentation, and provide different points of view, while the holding’s management allegedly advocated strengthening its position close to the liberal audience.
Why RBC will never become Dozhd
Board member and former CEO RBC Alexander Lyubimov told Lenta.ru that Reut’s departure is not related to the reorganization. He also noted that the management of RBC has many ideas for reforming the channel, but no one is going to change the direction and become liberal.
“You need to be a smooth channel. RBC is both liberal and illiberal. And what does liberal even mean? Since when has editorial policy been politically oriented? On Dozhd it has a political orientation, and on state channels too. But these are simply the costs of the current moment. RBC, thank God, lives in the traditions of real journalism, we simply cover events and, covering them, give different points of view. At the same time, of course, we cut off the marginalized. Our audience is also patriotic, we have Khodorkovsky, Navalny, Putin, and Medvedev,” explains Lyubimov.
How the channel got tangled and why it can’t unravel
A top manager of one of the television companies that competes with RBC in the news segment believes that several years ago the channel’s management made a strategic miscalculation: RBC moved away from purely financial and economic content and switched to general news.
“Once upon a time, RBC was indeed a business channel, unfinished, but with a professional approach, it could be turned into an interesting economic media outlet. They ran away from this concept towards general news and decided to play news. But it turned out that they have neither resources, nor people, nor specialists for news,” the manager believes.
As a result, the small but loyal core of the audience, which consisted of people involved in finance, was washed away. RBC is confused, the expert continues. Now the TV channel is in an antiphase: it is not purely financial, but it has not grown into a full-fledged information channel either. This is what makes him look for a niche for himself.
“If they had stayed in the financial information segment at one time and strengthened themselves professionally, they would now be market leaders,” the manager concludes.
RBC's first financial problems began in 2008 after the crisis broke out. The company got carried away with investments in securities and was unable to pay off its creditor banks. In 2010, Mikhail Prokhorov's ONEXIM holding acquired a controlling stake in RBC OJSC.
Having received such an enviable owner and investor, the company immediately proclaimed itself “the largest Russian media holding”, and its member media as “the leading business publication.” Until recently, this was largely justified - RBC managed to gain a fairly large audience and authority.
However, with the approach of the 2016 elections, the new “effective managers” of RBC, inspired by the unlimited financial support of the oligarch Prokhorov, decided to go into politics. It was not professional journalists who came to RBC, but people like former Echo of Moscow journalist Ilya Rozhdestvensky, who used the media to promote Navalny and other oppositionists. As a result, instead of a “business publication,” readers saw media with biased political assessments and undisguised support for the non-systemic opposition. RBC from a reputable publication has turned into a refuge for “Navalny’s minions” and has become an instrument of anti-Russian, pro-Western propaganda,” the author believes.
Business publication: violation of ethics and funny mistakes
Headlines and news like the ones below have become commonplace for a long time.
Nobody cared how such headlines correlated with elementary journalistic ethics (the law is generally binding, what does Navalny have to do with it?). The purpose of the headline, the author believes, is not to convey information to readers, but to promote Navalny out of nowhere and present him as a “victim of the regime.” Such “news” from “journalist” Rozhdestvensky and company have become the norm for “business publications.”
For reference: official document RBC, in which the company assures that it refrains from political assessments:
RBC systematically allowed direct distortion of information. A typical example is the story of the report on the Litvinenko case. The “Business Edition” quite seriously called the report a “court decision” by which Putin was found guilty of the murder of Litvinenko, and showed complete legal and journalistic illiteracy. However, attentive readers quickly exposed the lies of the “conscientious journalists,” as a result of which the chief editor of RBC, Elizaveta Osetinskaya, had to apologize.
And just recently, another embarrassment occurred: readers saw a draft published on the RBC website with a comment from the editor, who asks journalists to find an expert with the “correct” opinion regarding Vladimir Putin’s instructions.
As explained, the Russian President stated that the assets of state-owned companies must be sold only to Russian investors, and also ensure that the property is not then transferred out of the country through offshore companies. The RBC editor insisted that the selected expert explain that the privatization conditions outlined by the authorities had significantly narrowed the circle of investors and it would be more difficult for the state to sell its assets. Later, in the place of experts, the words of the chief economist of PF Capital and an anonymous financial consultant with the “right” opinion appeared.
But maybe all this is just a series of coincidences, and we envy a major publication that, despite political bias and mistakes, was commercially successful? - the author asks.
"Greedy Team"
With the virtually unlimited resources of oligarch Prokhorov, RBC could become a commercially successful publication. As the director of RBC proudly reported in the annual report for 2014, “the RBC team meets two criteria - professionalism and greed.” If there are doubts about the first, then no one doubts the second.
The source of RBC's wealth is multi-million dollar loans from the “generous investor” Prokhorov. At the moment, RBC's long-term debts alone amount to more than 17 billion (!) rubles, which is confirmed by the latest financial statements of the enterprise signed by the general director.
At the same time, in 2014-2015, RBC’s loss amounted to from one and a half to two billion rubles.
In this regard, “effective RBC managers” do not pay even a ruble in income taxes.
How much did Prokhorov spend on the amusements of “scrupulous journalists”? – the author poses the question. And again extracts the answer from the documents. From financial documents it follows that Prokhorov invested about 300 million US dollars in RBC.
Here is a loan to Prokhorov’s company for $140,000,000, which was supposed to be repaid in 2015, but the company received a deferment until 2020 (section 2.3.2 “Credit history of the issuer”):
This section also contains information about a second loan agreement for the same amount.
As you can see, over 6 years, RBC managed to pay only 16 million dollars out of 140 (just over 10%). Interest should also be added to the debt. An elementary mathematical calculation shows that under no circumstances will the company be able to pay off Prokhorov for the remaining 4 years and will inevitably be doomed to bankruptcy if granted on our own“effective managers,” the author believes.
Exchange rate difference as an excuse
What are the reasons for such unfortunate failures? The latest RBC report says that the exchange rate difference is to blame for everything: RBC borrowed in dollars and has to repay in them too. However, this does not stand up to basic scrutiny.
Firstly, sharp exchange rate fluctuations began only in mid-2014. What did RBC management do for 4 years? What prevented him from paying off most of the debt, and why was only 10% of the debt paid off before any exchange rate fluctuations began?
Secondly, imagine that the dollar costs half as much as it does now (pre-crisis rate). Then RBC’s debt is not 17 billion, but “only” 8.5 - RBC is also unable to pay this money.
There is another bad news for RBC. In 2015 the amount net assets the company turned out to be negative, the company went into minus 500 million, as a result of which RBC violated the legislation on joint stock companies. This is clearly stated in the 2015 financial report:
Paragraph 11 of the Federal Law “On Joint-Stock Companies” states: “If at the end of the second reporting year or each subsequent reporting year, the value of the company’s net assets is less than the minimum authorized capital specified in Article 26 of this Federal Law, the company, no later than six months after the end of the reporting year, is obliged to make a decision on its liquidation.”
In the meantime, as you can see above, the “effective managers” have one recipe: run to the narrow-minded investor Prokhorov and “cheat” him into deferring the debt and new injections.
The Kontur-Focus system also gives RBC a negative financial rating for all indicators. And he says that a company with such indicators cannot count on a loan.
Why was the bottom broken?
To assess the quality of RBC's management, let us turn to the Corporate Governance Code, which was adopted by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. This document establishes financial transparency in companies, management accountability, control over management costs and other measures to improve management efficiency. This is a recommendation document, however, RBC, as a large company, follows it, which is directly stated in the annual report for 2014.
The efficiency standards at RBC must be high, because its “conscientious journalists” are very fond of exposing “ineffective” state corporations and institutions. Let's look again at RBC's annual report for 2014:
Translating from legal into Russian: at RBC, shareholders are deprived of the opportunity to ask questions about the company’s activities “ effective managers", and minority shareholders are deprived of the opportunity to exercise corporate control.
There is no anti-corruption policy at RBC as a class! But how great it is to expose the “corrupt regime” without starting with yourself, the author notes.
And finally, having collected the patient’s medical history, we can confidently make a diagnosis. Wait a minute though. We completely forgot about the audit! Such an effective company must have a brilliant audit report.
Diagnosis from auditors
Here it is for the past 2015. Signed just a few days ago.
It says here in black and white:
1. “Effective managers” of RBC carry out fraud with accounts receivable (this is the money that other companies owe to RBC). Suddenly it turns out that the majority of RBC’s “debtors” are persons associated with the company. Apparently, in order to increase the amount of net assets, the company, through entities under its control, is inflating a bubble of receivables.
This is definitely something law enforcement agencies should be interested in.
2. And the best thing: “the Company’s ability to continue its activities depends on the desire and ability of the shareholders to continue to provide financial support.”
The RBC auditor seems to be hinting that as a result of the actions of RBC’s “effective managers” the company is already close to death, and the question of its existence depends solely on the goodwill of wealthy investors.
RBC. Results
Let's summarize the results of the investigation. What happened with RBC is a clear example of what can happen to a company if its management is entrusted to “effective managers” with liberal views. For them, the concept of “profitability” and audience interests simply does not exist. The media is turning into a media service for Navalny and other “protest leaders” with a 2% rating. Personally, I do not believe that this PR is carried out free of charge, for ideological reasons. Although RBC employs mediocre managers, they are far from fools in life.
But what about Prokhorov, you ask, why does he continue to pour huge amounts of money into RBC and does not demand a return? There can be two explanations for this. Either Prokhorov long ago accepted the fact that he would not receive a return on his investment and made a stupid mistake, or he has a commercial interest in squandering hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, minimizing the tax base of ONEXIM in this way.
According to media reports (and if you believe them), Prokhorov insists on compensation for the money invested in RBC and is ready to sell it only on these conditions. Quite a surprising approach for a supporter of the “free market”: if you yourself invested the money incorrectly and did not monitor its use, this is solely your business risk, and not the risk of the buyer. A company is bought to make a profit, and not to compensate for other people’s unjustified expenses.
So, today any potential buyer of RBC should know about the “largest media holding” that it:
1) brings a loss annually in the amount of 2 billion;
2) has accounts payable of more than 17 billion, which he will never be able to repay;
3) does not comply with basic standards of corporate governance and does not want to limit the appetites of management;
4) has a negative amount of net assets, which in a year could lead RBC to liquidation;
5) carries out incomprehensible actions with accounts receivable and cannot exist without multimillion-dollar support from investors.
In the second half of August, TV viewers discovered that their usual channels had disappeared from their usual remote control buttons. RBC demonstrated how the sequence of channels in the broadcast network of different operators has changed
In July, the President of Russia signed amendments to the law “On Communications” and “On the Media,” which resulted in changes in the numbering of TV and radio channels: the sequence of the first 20 “buttons on the remote control,” or the first and second digital multiplexes, should now be uniform , they must contain mandatory public television channels. In addition to the document, the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications is now preparing explanations for operators on how channels should be numbered.
As representatives of Rostelecom, Akado Telecom and MTS explained, some digital cable television operators have already begun to comply with the decree and have begun to make changes to the numbering and order of channels in their networks. As for analogue television, there are no direct instructions to change the order of channels by frequency in analogue networks, but some service operators have decided to do this on their own.
The shuffling of channels has caused bewilderment among many TV viewers - in the last week in social networks There was constant discussion about the “disappearance” of certain channels. The Akado Telecom representative attributes the lack of understanding on the part of users to the fact that operators did not provide timely full information to its subscribers.
What is the reason
As part of the planned transition from analogue terrestrial television broadcasting to digital, at least two digital multiplexes were to be created in Russia. Multiplex is a package of channels that is distributed on one frequency. If today the signal of most terrestrial channels is available only in cities with a population of 100 thousand or more people (viewers of small cities watch these channels thanks to local cable networks and satellite operators), then the digital multiplex should be available throughout almost the entire country.
Initially, it was assumed that analogue television broadcasting would be completely switched off in Russia in 2015, but now they are already talking about 2019.
For the first multiplex, the infrastructure was built with public money. This multiplex included all all-Russian mandatory public television channels, determined by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation of June 24, 2009. Now these are Channel One, Russia 1, Russia K, Russia 24, NTV, Channel Five, Karusel, Public Television of Russia and TV Center. In addition, the first multiplex includes the sports channel “Match TV”, which will replace “Russia 2” in November.
The infrastructure of the second multiplex has not yet been completed. The second multiplex is commercial. The construction of its infrastructure is paid for by the broadcasters themselves, who were selected for the multiplex through a competition. These are REN TV, Spas, STS, Domashny, TV-3, Zvezda, Mir, TNT and Muz TV. Now the second multiplex also includes the “Sport Plus” channel, on the basis of which the already mentioned “Match TV” is being created. Roskomnadzor has already announced a competition for the position that will become vacant after the reorganization of Sport Plus.
Last July, amendments to the laws “On Mass Media” and “On Communications” were adopted by the State Duma, approved by the Federation Council and signed by President Putin, which expanded the concept of “mandatory public channel.” Now these are not only the first ten broadcasters determined by presidential decree, but also all participants in digital multiplexes. Cable and satellite operators must distribute all mandatory public channels on their networks free of charge. Now providers must broadcast 20 channels for free. In addition, the law obliges the first twenty positions (buttons) to be allocated to these mandatory public channels in their networks.
Thus, broadcasters from the second multiplex achieved free distribution on cable networks and via satellite, but most of them boycotted the construction of the infrastructure of the multiplex itself.
Problem area
In 2013, all participants in the second multiplex entered into ten-year agreements with the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS), under which they committed to annually finance the construction of infrastructure. As indicated in the reporting of STS Media, this year the company must pay about $4.2 million for the digital distribution of its STS and Domashny channels in cities with a population of more than 50 thousand people, the amount for next year in accordance with the agreement will be determined in October. CTC Media should allocate 1.4 billion rubles in 2015-2018 for the construction of digital infrastructure in cities with a population of less than 50 thousand people. (about $25.6 million at the exchange rate as of June 30).
But STS Media is the only company that regularly pays RTRS for the participation of its channels in the second multiplex; all other broadcasters have accumulated debt to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, TV channel managers unofficially admit. Receivables from buyers and customers to RTRS in 2014 more than doubled, to 2.6 billion rubles, as indicated in financial statements Federal State Unitary Enterprise. But RTRS is in no hurry to collect debts from participants in the second multiplex: in the database arbitration courts not a single claim has been registered against broadcasters.
In response to an official request from RBC about the debt of participants in the second multiplex, the head of the RTRS press service, Igor Stepanov, responded in June that he “does not consider it possible” to comment on this issue, since “this information is subject to a confidentiality regime.” The Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications, which oversees RTRS, does not have information about the debt of broadcasters to the Federal State Unitary Enterprise, as follows from the response of Deputy Minister of Communications Alexei Volin to RBC’s request. The broadcasters themselves also refused to comment on questions about their debt to RTRS.