Prosveshchenie allocated more than 26.5 billion rubles for dividends. in 2023 – Kommersant

JSC Publishing House Prosveshchenie, the parent company of the Prosveshchenie group, which produces textbooks, allocated over 26.5 billion rubles for dividends in 2023, found out Forbes. In 2022, Prosveshchenie JSC allocated 9.16 billion rubles for dividends, and in 2021 – 4 billion rubles.

Forbes has reviewed the annual reports of Prosveshchenie Publishing House JSC, which contains information on dividends from all operating subsidiaries of the group and distributes them among shareholders. According to the document, last year JSC Publishing House Prosveshchenie declared dividends three times. At the end of 2022, the company paid 4.75 billion rubles, 707 million rubles. for the first quarter of 2023 and more than 21 billion rubles. for nine months of 2023. Thus, in total last year, Prosveshchenie Publishing House JSC allocated 26.51 billion rubles for the payment of dividends. This amount became a record for the company, Forbes notes.

Forbes points out that Prosveshchenie Publishing House JSC did not officially disclose financial statements for 2023. Therefore, the company’s revenue is unknown. However, in 2022, the company’s net profit margin was 56%, several times higher than that of other book publishers.

Until 2012, the publishing house was state-owned, then it was bought by the founders of Olma Media, Vladimir Uzun and Oleg Tkach, for 2.5 billion rubles. The publishers raised most of these funds from the SMP bank of Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. RBC in April 2015 reported that Arkady Rotenberg controlled up to 25% of Prosveshcheniya. In 2017 “Vedomosti” wrote that Mr. Rotenberg formally resigned from the company’s shareholders. In 2021, co-owners of the Prosveshcheniye group become state investors – Sberbank, RDIF and VEB.RF, which each received 25% of the shares. Another 25% remained with private investors.

In September 2023, Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko called deal with the sharp increase in prices for textbooks and the monopoly of “Enlightenment” on the market. She noted that on the eve of the school year, prices for textbooks in the regions increased by one and a half times. “Enlightenment”, in particular, printed most of the new textbooks on general history and Russian history for 10th and 11th grades.