Share processing centers – Kommersant

Large cloud infrastructure provider and data center operator Selectel, founded by former shareholders of VKontakte Vyacheslav Miralishvili and Lev Leviev, has begun preparations for an IPO. According to Kommersant, the company is holding meetings with potential investors. Selectel does not deny the possibility of placement, but the site has not yet been chosen there. Analysts estimate the company at 40-50 billion rubles. and assume that it will offer investors 15-20% of the shares. Participants of the IT market consider the current moment to be successful for raising funds.

Kommersant’s interlocutors in the stock market said that investors are starting meetings with the top management of Selectel (a cloud infrastructure provider) this week. According to Kommersant’s sources, the company will discuss the IPO. “Meetings so far do not oblige to anything and are more of an introductory nature,” said the portfolio manager of the Russian management company.

According to another interlocutor in a large management company, premarketing will be carried out by Gazprombank and VTB: “Meetings can be held both with a pool of investors and individually.” Kommersant also has an invitation sent to potential investors to participate in the NDR (Non-deal roadshow), which will be held May 16-18.

In 2021, Lev Leviev said in the media that the company is considering an IPO “on the horizon of three years.” Kommersant’s interlocutor in the data center market said that he had heard about IPO plans about six months ago from one of Selectel’s top managers. The company itself says that it is only exploring the possibilities: “The decision on the IPO has not been made, we have not set internal deadlines, we have not determined the exchange.”

A Selectel representative assured that the meetings with investors scheduled for May 16-18 are not related to the preparation for the IPO: “Selectel, as the issuer of two bond issues, regularly holds such meetings with investors. They help maintain a high level of information for current and potential investors.” In February 2021, Selectel placed three-year bonds for RUB 3 billion. with a semi-annual coupon at a rate of 8.5%. In November 2022, another issue for 3 billion rubles took place. with a semi-annual coupon at a rate of 11.5%.

Selectel is a significant player in the Russian cloud services market, the company’s share is about 10%, says Finam FG analyst Leonid Delitsyn: “With current revenue exceeding RUB 8 billion in 2020, when there was an IPO boom, Selectel could qualify for an estimate of 160 billion rubles. But since then, the multipliers have fallen, and now such companies are valued not at 20 annual revenues, but at six.” Accordingly, he adds, Selectel can be valued at 40-50 billion rubles. discounted due to regional risks. The expert estimates the potential for placement of shares on the stock market at 15-20%, “that is, we are talking about attracting 7.5-10 billion rubles.”

“Now is a good time to invest in the data center sector, as market saturation will not occur until two or three years from now. Global cloud providers have left Russia: AWS, Azure, Google, etc., which frees up space for domestic players,” notes T1 CEO Igor Kalganov. At the same time, he specified, large companies with state participation, including Rostelecom and Rosatom, are now actively investing in the data center, with which it is “more and more difficult for private business to compete.”

Nikita Korolev, Vitaly Gaidaev