“Rosatom” storms “Elbrus” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 25 (7470) from 02.10.

According to Kommersant, after lengthy negotiations, Rosatom structures are buying MCST, the developer of Elbrus processors. Kommersant’s sources in the microelectronics market believe that the state corporation is acting on behalf of the government, which intends to keep an important developer who has found himself in a difficult financial situation. MCST is under US sanctions. For Rosatom, lawyers believe, the purchase of the company will not create significant risks, although it may complicate interaction with counterparties.

NPO Critical Information Systems (NPO KIS, a structure of Rosatom) acquires a 100% stake in JSC MCST, says a Kommersant source in microelectronics developers. According to him, “the deal was cashless.” The interlocutor of Kommersant in a large IT integrator and another source familiar with the situation also know about it. Rosatom declined to comment, as did MCST Marketing Director Konstantin Trushkin. Kommersant’s interlocutor, close to the shareholders of MCST, denies Rosatom’s interest in the company.

The fact that the structures of Rosatom are showing interest in buying MCST became known at the end of 2021 (see Kommersant dated December 14, 2021). NPO KIS was established by the state corporation in October 2022. Kommersant’s sources then said that the company was interested in absorbing assets in the electronics market. One of the candidates for the purchase was Kraftway, which produces computers and electronics (see Kommersant dated January 31). An interlocutor close to one of the parties to the deal says that NPO KIS is now “interested in various assets, but it’s too early to talk about closed deals.”

Negotiations regarding the MCST began in the summer of 2021, according to the interlocutor of Kommersant in the microelectronics market, but the owners of the design center “set the price tag too high, and the process did not move forward.” He believes that Rosatom was already considered by the authorities as “a clear investor who can save the asset”, while the state corporation itself was “moderately interested in the deal.”

A Kommersant source in one of the major Russian electronics manufacturers adds that negotiations on the deal continued in 2022. “After the pre-sale audit was carried out, representatives of Rosatom said that they were ready to manage the asset and develop it, but they did not want to pay,” says the interlocutor of Kommersant. In his opinion, MCST “had problems with its debt load and outstanding obligations on a number of subsidies, and with such factors, the assessment goes down.”

The CEO of Norsi-Trans (the largest partner of MCST, produces storage systems based on Elbrus processors) Sergey Ovchinnikov does not know about the completion of the deal, but he heard about the negotiations. If Rosatom really acquired the MCST, Mr. Ovchinnikov notes, the design center “will receive an incentive for development.” “Rosatom has enough funds, competencies and personnel to ensure the development and production of unique Russian processors,” he said.

The state corporation can afford to take sanctions risks when buying MCST, believes Igor Mazilin, managing partner of the law firm INGVARR: “Rosatom managed to avoid export restrictions from the very beginning of the sanctions “war” due to the fact that it is difficult to exclude the Russian nuclear industry from the global market , and the capabilities of the state corporation remain important for countries imposing sanctions against the Russian Federation.” The inclusion of a subsidiary in the sanctions list does not directly affect the status of the parent and “sister” structures, says Ekaterina Makeeva, partner and head of the sanctions practice at JSB A-PRO, but it may affect interaction with counterparties who are forced to comply with restrictions.

Nikita Korolev, Timofey Kornev, Ekaterina Volkova