An investment fund controlled by Alexey Nechaev, the founder of Russian direct sales leader Faberlic, has acquired Sports.ru with affiliated blogging and marketing assets. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
Sports.ru is a leading Russian-language sports media and community platform. Founded by a journalist in 1998, the platform was sold in 2006 to Herman Tkachenko, according to Forbes Russia, which reported on the deal with Faberlic.
Before the acquisition by Nechaev’s fund, Tkachenko owned a 67.7% stake in the company, alongside other individual shareholders.
Sports.ru currently generates nearly 50 million visits monthly, according to SimilarWeb (up from some 7 million visitors monthly in 2016).
The goal of the acquirer is “to diversify its core business through digital assets,” Forbes Russia quoted Ilya Pushkin, the managing partner of Nechaev’s fund, as saying.
“We love projects with a strong community, it always says a lot about the sustainability of the business. For example, we have already invested in a project about motherhood Baby.ru and see in Sports.ru a continuation of this strategy,” he added.
According to Sports.ru CEO Mark Ten, the deal will allow the platform to plan with confidence capital-intensive projects with a long payback cycle. He cited as examples the purchase of rights to sports broadcasts, the production of original video content, and the development of a project about healthy lifestyles.
“Our ambitions are not limited to expanding within the sports market,” he underlined. ‘Together with our new partners, we aim to create a media holding consisting of various thematic media and services: sports, esports, health, motherhood, finance and investment, movies and TV series — any vertical that has the potential to unite people into communities,” Forbes Russia quoted him as saying.
Ten specified that nothing will change operationally in Sports.ru, with the existing team continuing to work. However, two international platforms affiliated with Sports.ru — Tribuna.com and Betting Insider — will continue developing separately, as they are not concerned by the deal.
Founded in 1997, Faberlic produces a variety of cosmetics, skin and hair care, perfumes, apparel, footwear and other items which it sells across 20 countries. It touts itself as Russia’s largest direct sale company and a world leader in this field.
