Astra Linux owner Denis Frolov became a dollar billionaire – Kommersant

The owner of software developer Astra Group, Denis Frolov, became a dollar billionaire after the value of his company’s shares on the Moscow Exchange rose sharply. At the rate Forbesthe market value of the Astra Group shares owned by Mr. Frolov exceeds $1.1 billion.

As the publication notes, this week the price of Astra Group shares on the Moscow Exchange exceeded 700 rubles. At the close of trading last week, March 22, one share of the developer cost 596.4 rubles.

As of 14:26 Moscow time on March 29, the price of the Astra Group share is 683.25 rubles. Thus, today the market value of Mr. Frolov’s 151.6 million shares is about 103.6 billion rubles. or about $1.13 billion at the Bank of Russia exchange rate.

The publication reports that the owner of Astra Group has become the second Russian billionaire who made his fortune from software development. Another such billionaire is the CEO of Kaspersky Lab, Evgeny Kaspersky. Forbes estimates his fortune at $2.1 billion.

Denis Frolov is a graduate of the Higher School of Economics. He worked for more than seven years at Wimm-Bill-Dann, where he grew from an investment analyst to director of development. In 2009, he began importing KSS lamps to Russia, launching the Warton company and the Gauss brand. In 2010, I started purchasing LED lamps.

In 2013, Mr. Frolov launched the production of LED lamps in the Tula region. According to TAdviser, his company’s revenue in 2015 reached 1.3 billion rubles. In 2017, Mr. Frolov acquired a majority stake in the developer of the Astra Linux OS, the RusBITech company (now Astra Group). In the spring of 2022, he acquired 80% in the National Computer Corporation (renamed Smart). In 2021, Warton acquired the Baikal Electronics company.

Astra Group held an IPO in October 2023: the owners (before the placement, 76.19% of the company’s shares belonged to Denis Frolov, 19.05% to Ilya Sivtsev, another 4.76% was a quasi-treasury stake) sold 5% of the shares for 3. 5 billion rubles As of the evening of March 25, the company’s capitalization amounted to 125 billion rubles. At the end of March 2024, Kommersant learned that VK, Rostelecom, Rosatom and MTS were interested in acquiring Russian OS developers, including Astra Group of Companies.

Read more in the publication “Kommersant” “The OS will be put into pockets”.

Erdni Kagaltynov