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Articles & publications
31.05.2010
Svyazinvest: the most rapidly expanding companies in 2009 were UTK, CenterTelecom, Uralsvyazinform and VolgaTelecomFinam
The reorganization of Svyazinvest should lead to significant growth in capitalization and the credit ratings of the merged company, and the new Rostelecom should become a real blue chip, the general director of Svyazinvest Evgeny Yurchenko said in an interview with the corporate publication.
The Rostelecom Group of companies reported consolidated IFRS net profit equal to RUR 3,456 mln in full-year 2009, which is 71.6% less than this indicator in 2008, according a statement issued by the company.
Comments: Evgeny Yurchenko, general director of the Svyazinvest Group of companies.
We came to Svyazinvest at the height of the global economic downturn. In 2009 we faced the task of doing our best to maintain the holding’s independence, helping it emerge from a financial and structural crisis and getting the Group ready to go through an unprecedented merger.
The unstable economic environment required us to adopt unorthodox methods and decisions, i.e. rapid, but well-pondered actions. As a result of the anti-crisis measures, Svyazinvest showed incredible resilience as all of the Group’s companies reported positive trends and expansion of all headline and relative financial indicators.
Speaking of the Group as a whole, the main profit and EBITDA indicators in 2009 surged by nearly 20% compared to the year-ago period. Most importantly, free cash flow skyrocketed 600%, up seven-fold, topping RUR 38 bln.
In 2009 the holding’s most rapidly expanding companies turned out to be UTK (net profit up 223.2%), CenterTelecom (net profit surged 98%), Uralsvyazinform and VolgaTelecom (net profit up 48.7% and 43.5%, respectively).
Against the backdrop of these stellar RTO financial results, Rostelecom looks less attractive, and one of the purposes of the merger is to put an end to this situation, since, due to the highly competitive nature of the telecommunications market a long-distance operator with such onerous social commitments as Rostelecom is unable by definition to compete.
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