The Russian Navigation Technologies company (RNT), a developer and producer of GPS/Glonass monitoring systems and Autotracker transport management systems, has filed for bankruptcy in the Moscow Arbitration Court, according to documents on the court’s website.
In 2010, the company raised 300 million rubles (about $10 million at that time) placing its stock on the market. It planned to expand into international markets, develop a network of offices and launch a franchise sales model, granting small and medium businesses access to RNT’s dispatch and server software. But in 2013, its net losses were 478 million rubles and debt to creditors came to 181.5 million rubles.
According to SPARK, a Russian company database, the owners of RNT are VTB Capital Asset Management (30.73%), a branch of the state-owned bank VTB, Otkritie Securities (13.05%), the British subsidiary of Otkritie Capital, and two Cyprus-based companies – Gloromo Holdings (26.64%) and Fiazior Holding (24.6%).
In an exchange with the Russian business rail Vedomosti, Ivan Nechaev, one of the founders and the former CEO of RNT, said the legal procedure does not imply the complete closure of the company or cessation of its business. Rather, the suit is a standard procedure to protect RNT from its creditors. In 2010, the company attracted investments but, in 2012, market reform began, legislation was radically altered, requirements for onboard instrumentation were changed and, as a result, demand declined and the buzz faded, Nechaev said. But RNT still hopes to rebuild its business, he added.
RNT’s bankruptcy was to be expected, according to Stanislav Emelyanov, deputy CEO of Omnicomm, a competitor of RNT. RNT almost always made the lowest offer in the tenders it participated in, clearly counting on making up for the low compensation with market growth.
However, the market grew slowly and state programs to promote Glonass were cut back. Emelyanov added that, in the middle of last year, the company’s owners made an attempt to correct the situation by changing the top management. (Vitaly Kalyagin took the helm of the company in place of Nechaev.) It did not save the company though.
Source: Vedomosti
