THE GLOBAL LEADER OF OUTDOOR ADVERTISING ABANDONS RUSSIAN MARKET

Until recently, the multinational company JCDecaux was one of the leading shareholders of the Russ Outdoor, where it owned a 25% stake. The rest of the assets were distributed between Stinn LLC (48.57%) and VTB Capital (26.43%). Now, the “Stinn” company acquired the asset of JCDecaux, becoming a majority shareholder with a share of 73.57%.

JCDecaux began its activities in Russia in 2006. Originally, it was a BigBoard company, created in cooperation with a Czech company. In 2008, the company could have become the main shareholder of the News Outdoor (as Russ Outdoor was then called), whose shares were being sold by Rupert Murdoch. However, the economic crisis erupted, and the purchase of securities failed.

Murdoch’s “delicious” assets were acquired by other investors in 2011 (VTB-Capital and others). As a result, they had to buy a share from them.

Thus, a takeover of BigBoard, which was sold as an asset of the JCDecaux, took place. For reference: the total revenue of JCDecaux in the global market amounted to $ 4.3 billion in 2019.

Now the experts note the consolidation of the Russian advertising market in difficult conditions of economic instability. Earlier, a successful takeover took place: the Laisa and Vera-Olympus agencies joined the Russ Outdoor.

The fact that JCDecaux could abandon the Russian market was known to specialists as far as a year ago, when the deal was approved in advance by the antimonopoly authority. The experts call the reason for this decision the uncertainty that arose after the minority shareholders had left Russ Outdoor in October 2019. The spread of COVID-19 made its adjustments as well. As a result, 25% of JCDecaux shares were sold for about 2.5 billion rubles.

The actual owners of the Stinn LLC, which has now become the main violin in Russ Outdoor, are the Mirzoyan family and Bekhan Barakhoev.

Previously, they became the owners of Vera-Olympus, and a bit later, they acquired the Laisa agency, which has an exclusive contract for advertising services for Russian Railways. According to the official figures, the sole founder of the company is Grigory Sadoyan.

In April 2020, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation, Russ Outdoor was recognized as a backbone enterprise, and entered the cherished list of victims. Now the company can count on the loans at preferential rates. Considering that the company is a leader in the number of advertising surfaces and the revenue from their sale (revenue amounted to $ 122 million for 2019), the benefits from the state treasury will clearly not be superfluous for the advertising giant.