Softline structure can develop telecom equipment

Softline’s structure has established a company that will research and manufacture telecommunications equipment. The co-founder is the general director of IRE-Polyus, the Russian structure of the international holding IPG Photonics, which is mainly engaged in the development and production of lasers, but also communications equipment. Experts believe that the new company is needed to facilitate the recognition of domestic equipment.

Kommersant discovered in the SPARK-Interfax database that Softline Projects LLC (through Softline International CJSC owns Axion Holding Cyprus Ltd, whose director is Igor Borovikov, the founder of Softline) on September 1 established BVPG LLC with the main activity “scientific research”, as well as a number of additional ones, including the production of switching systems, digital transport systems, communication equipment, etc.

Softline structures in the company own 60%, the remaining 40% are distributed among individuals: Evgeny Serkov (4.7%), Svetlana Alihimenko (4.8%), Artur Andreev (11.5%) and BVPG CEO Nikolai Evtikhiev (19 %). The latter also heads the Fryazino LLC NTO IRE-Polyus. It is the largest manufacturer of laser industrial and medical equipment in the Russian Federation. LLC also produces telecommunications equipment using DWDM technology (a method for transmitting a large number of optical channels over a single optical fiber, used to organize high-speed communication networks), but Kommersant’s interlocutors estimate its share in the segment as “extremely small.” BVPG and IRE-Polus are registered at the same address. Softline declined to comment, Nikolai Evtikhiev did not answer Kommersant’s questions.

IRE-Polyus is part of the international holding IPG Photonics, founded by Valentin Gapontsev (died in 2021, Forbes estimated his fortune at $2.8 billion). The holding is engaged in the development and production of laser equipment and fiber lasers. At the end of 2022 revenue of IPG Photonics was $1.43 billion.

From the annual report of IPG Photonics, it follows that IRE-Polyus is one of the three main production sites of the holding. About 1.9 thousand out of 6.2 thousand of its employees work there. The other two are in Germany and Belarus. The revenue of IRE-Polyus at the end of 2022 amounted to 16.9 billion rubles. (drop by 16.7% year-on-year) with a loss of 5.5 billion rubles. (up 244% yoy)

The reporting of IPG Photonics says that the Russian structure supplies equipment to the Russian Federation and China. Sales to the Chinese market at the end of 2022 amounted to $62 million, in the first half of 2023 – $9 million. It also says that the “Russian-Ukrainian conflict” limited the ability of IPG Photonics to use production facilities in Russia, which also depend on the supply of components from USA and Germany. Because of this, the company is preparing to incur capital expenditures to launch production in other countries. The Russian structure of the holding is now self-financing.

In conditions when supplies from abroad, necessary for the production of the main products (lasers for industry and medicine), are complicated, the company is looking for opportunities to increase diversification through the development and production of telecommunications equipment, Arseniy Brykin, general director of the Basis consortium, believes: “Perhaps, it was required here Softline expertise, for example, in terms of expanding sales of such equipment.

This version is supported by Zelax President Sergey Sukhman: “The establishment of a new structure, not corporately related to American shareholders, may be necessary for the equipment developed by the company to be recognized as Russian and gain access to government procurement.” He adds that with such a scheme, IRE-Polyus engineers will be involved in the development of equipment. However, a number of Kommersant’s sources in the IT market note that Softline has never shown interest in developing its own equipment, being mainly engaged in the supply of turnkey solutions. One of the interlocutors admits that the new structure is needed “rather as an intermediary, so that IRE-Polyus retains access to foreign technologies.”

Nikita Korolev