S8 Capital, a diversified Russian holding, is to acquire Price.ru, a property of Rambler & Co. In an exchange with East-West Digital News, S8 Capital confirmed that it will fully acquire Price.ru in a transaction that will be completed next year.
The amount of the deal has not been disclosed, but business daily Kommersant cited “a source close to one of the parties” who estimated it at “nearly $12 million.”
Founded by Russian lottery magnate Armen Sarkisyan, S8 Capital focuses on “creating and developing high-tech solutions and services.” It claims to manage “more than 100 projects” in the retail, financial and telecom industries, as well as in e-commerce and digital media.
“Our companies have gained unique industry-specific competences,” which have made S8 Capital “a truly multi-profile holding,” a representative of S8 Capital told EWDN.
“Our strategic goal is to create an ecosystem or digital platform that will combine a set of solutions and services to meet or exceed customers’ needs and expectations,” said the representative.
Thus, “the acquisition of Price.ru, the navigator for bargains in the Russian-language Internet, is a strategic move: It will help us generate a large-scale synergetic effect with other businesses.”
Earlier this year, S8 Capital launched Sport24.ru, an online media outlet which quickly became one of the most quoted sources among sports media in Russia. Among S8 Capital’s other properties, as noted by Kommersant, are online bookmaker 888.ru, car leasing service Next.Car, and Strakhovka.ru, an aggregator of insurance offers.
S8 Capital aims to have all its services complement each other, said the company representative: “The competencies and data from one business helping develop and improve other ones with customers provided with guaranteed security and high-quality service.”
Old resource, modest valuations
Launched in 1997 by IT entrepreneur Arkady Moreinis, Price.ru is one of the oldest e-commerce resources on the Russian Internet scene. As reported by Kommersant, Rambler bought a majority stake in the company in 2006, and fully acquired the site two years later.
The amount of the deal was comprised between $5 million and $10 million, Moreinis said in a previous media interview.
Rambler & Co now concentrates more on media and entertainment, said Rafael Abramyan, a member of the group’s managing committee, in an exchange with Kommersant, to explain the sale of Price.ru.
This new focus has been illustrated, over the past years, by the acquisition of online video site Okko as well as theater networks Cinema Park and Formula Kino.
However, Rambler & Co still owns a variety of other online resources, including web portal Rambler.ru, several online news and content services, and an online travel service.
Just weeks ago, the group joined forces with Sberbank and UCS to create a multifunction food service platform.
