Vedomosti changed its media manager – Newspaper Kommersant No. 155 (7356) of 08/25/2022
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Business News Media, which publishes the Vedomosti newspaper, has changed its owner: instead of Ivan Eremin, it has become media manager Oleg Leonov. Kommersant’s sources explain the deal, among other things, by Mr. Eremin’s desire to avoid sanctions risks that may arise due to ties with major Russian media, regardless of its specifics and position. The new owner promised that “personnel and editorial policy remains unchanged.”
Support JSC, which owns 100% of Business News Media JSC (BNM, publishes the Vedomosti newspaper), has changed its owner. Since August 4, according to SPARK-Interfax and the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Oleg Leonov owns 100% of the company instead of Ivan Eremin. JSC “Business News Media” confirmed the information about the change of ownership, specifying that a new board of directors was formed, headed by Mr. Leonov.
The new board also includes Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fedor Voitolovsky, Editor-in-Chief of the Versiya newspaper Konstantin Zyatkov, Vice-Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics Victoria Panova, Press Secretary of Gazprombank Anton Trifonov and Vice President for GR and PR of Delo Group of Companies Maxim Filimonov. Mikhail Nelyubin remains the CEO of BNM and Support. He declined to comment.
“In the current high-risk and low-margin situation in the media market, I decided to leave the media project and concentrate on new business areas,” Mr. Eremin explained.
“Personnel and editorial policy remains unchanged. The commercial terms of the deal were not disclosed,” Oleg Leonov assured (his words are given in the message BNM).
According to Kartoteka.ru, Oleg Leonov owns En-V-Advisors LLC (NW Advisors) and En-V-a Consulting LLC. On the official site NW Advisors it is said that the company is a partner of the international Fti Consulting and works in the field of strategic communications in the Russian Federation and the CIS, Mr. Leonov has been heading it since 2011. Prior to that, he worked in the RBC holding and was the deputy editor-in-chief of the information service of the REN TV channel.
The Vedomosti newspaper has been published since 1999. Until 2015, through the Cypriot Delovoi Standard Ltd, Business News Media was owned in equal shares by the American Dow Jones & Co, the British FT Group and the Finnish Sanoma.
In February 2015, the former general director of the Kommersant publishing house Demyan Kudryavtsev with partners Vladimir Voronov (recognized as a foreign agent) and Martin Pompadour bought edition and debt at a discount. In 2016, their Arkan Investment JSC issued a loan for 2.6 billion rubles. at Gazprombank. In 2017, the debt was bought out by Constanta LLC, which received a loan from the RRDB bank for €28 million.
In May 2020, BNM at Arkan Investment JSC acquired JSC “Support”, created in May 2019 by the founder of “Federalpress” Ivan Eremin. The deal amounted to 160 million rubles, the businessman also bought out several debts of the publication at a discount (see “Kommersant” dated April 16, 2021).
After the sale of BNM to the Sapport company, the editorial office of Vedomosti had a conflict with the new parent organization, as a result of which most of the journalists, including editor-in-chief Ilya Bulavinov, left the publication. Acting Chief Editor of Vedomosti was appointed Andrey Shmarov, later – Irina Kazmina.
The interlocutor of Kommersant in the media market believes that the change of the owner of Vedomosti is connected, among other things, with sanctions risks, which Ivan Eremin fears. “Judging by the wording that justifies the inclusion in the list of blocking sanctions in the US and the EU, the reason for getting there can be not only proximity to major political figures, but simply significance for the Russian economy,” says partner and head of sanctions practice at AB A-PRO Ekaterina Makeeva. In this sense, the lawyer agrees, the transfer of control “looks like an attempt by the current owner to protect himself.”
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