RBK : RBC to strengthen its B2B media services for business segment

RBC to strengthen its B2B media services for business segment

Moscow, December 17, 2014 - RBC OJSC (Moscow Exchange: RBCM) announces the start of the revamp of its portfolio of paid media and service products for corporate clients with a focus on corporate development and marketing. The company announces the acquisition of Public.ru digital media library. RBC's goal is to become the main source of information that helps business people, managers, and marketing specialists make informed business decisions. For this purpose, the company will consolidate the news and analysis of various Russian market segments, data characterizing the state and development dynamics of the market, and in-depth market research.

RBC boasts expertise in carrying out market research and a number of products utilizing market data. The acquisition of Public.ru will allow the company to add news and analysis of economy sectors to this group of products and offer the market a new comprehensive solution. At the same time, RBC is set on continuing the development of Public.ru's existing business on the provision of media monitoring and analysis, along with its subscription-based digital media library, and do so by shifting the emphasis to corporate marketing.

"We are opening a new page in RBC's history by actively developing business media services for business. It's an important step both in terms of diversification of revenue and expansion of the company's client base. RBC is the leading business media on the Internet, in print and TV segments. New products will further broaden the scope of our content and make it more specialized," said Derk Sauer, RBC president and chairman of the board of directors.

"We believe that the acquisition of an asset with access to an extensive industry-specific content is the fastest and most practical way for the company to make a move into specialized business content niche. Integrating Public.ru technology and database into RBC's existing infrastructure will make it possible to offer our audience a more profound analysis of key economy sectors. This, in turn, will allow our readers to be in the know about the latest events in their business segment and make informed decisions faster," RBC CEO Nikolay Molibog said.

"We see growth potential for RBC's B2B products and services in the marketing services niche. Public.ru products and RBC complement each other well in this segment. The acquisition of Public.ru will provide us with access to high-quality technologies facilitating operations with content produced by RBC and its distribution. Thus, this deal will allow us to strengthen RBC's strategically important business area and will open up new opportunities for creating new products," said Dmitry Kharitonov, digital director of RBC business projects.

Public.ru is one of the leading digital libraries that contains over 100m publications from more than 11,000 Russian-language media resources dating back to as early as 1990. Existing Public.ru services and RBC's content B2B products have great synergy in terms of the client base and offered solutions.

RBC is a leading Russian multimedia holding, with leadership positions in news and business media as well as in domain name registration and hosting. The holding's aggregate business audience amounts 30m people per month.

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