VK CEO Boris Dobrodeyev has resigned, the company's press service reported, TASS reports. His place will be taken by the first deputy general director of Rostelecom Vladimir Kiriyenko, the son of the first deputy head of the presidential administration of Russia Sergei Kiriyenko, writes RBC, citing sources. Meanwhile, Gazprombank transferred control over the company's shares to the Gazprom-Media holding.
p> Dobrodeyev resigned the next day after it became known that USM holding Alisher Usmanov sold 45% of MF Technologies, which controls 57.3% of VK's voting shares, to Sogaz group. He headed the company de facto since 2014, after the final departure of the founder of VKontakte Pavel Durov, and officially since 2016.
p> A source close to VK and a media manager, are familiar with the personnel decision, told RBC about the appointment of Vladimir Kiriyenko to Dobrodeev's place. He became vice president of Rostelecom in 2016, in the company the son of the first deputy head of the presidential administration was involved in the digital transformation of the company, the development of a network of data centers, and the project for the development of the urban environment in the regions. Rostelecom declined to comment on RBC's information, while VK said they would "not comment on rumors."
p> Meanwhile, according to The Bell, control over the company will be divided equally by Sogaz and Gazprombank - they will each own 45% in MF Technologies JSC. Sogaz received them as a result of a deal with USM Alisher Usmanov. Gazprombank already owned 36% of the company's shares - another 9% will still belong to USM, but now this package is "in a deal" with the bank, a representative of Usmanov said - he refused to disclose details. In total, Gazprombank will gain control over the same 45%. The remaining 10% of MF Technologies belongs to the state corporation Rostec.
p> Gazprombank has already decided to transfer its stake in the company to the Gazprom-Media holding. Its representatives said that "VK will continue to maintain the status of an independent company" and announced plans to develop its own digital ecosystem.
p> According to The Bell, Sogaz and Gazprombank are closely related. Thus, the largest shareholder of Sogaz is LLC Aquila (34.83% of voting shares), owned by the founder of Bank Rossiya Yuri Kovalchuk, his wife and former top managers of the bank. Another 22.85% belongs to Gazprom, and 13.44% belongs to the son of Vladimir Putin's cousin Mikhail Shelomov.
p> Gazprombank is also associated with Kovalchuk, although its ownership structure is more complicated, the newspaper notes. 49.9% of the bank's shares belong to the structures of Gazprom, 40.89% - NPF Gazfond, of which Gazprom itself is the largest shareholder (together with its subsidiaries 41.2%). At the same time, a third of Gazfond's shares belong to Sogaz, and another 24.9% belongs to the fund manager of the Leader Management Company, which until the beginning of the 2010s belonged to Sogaz, but in 2012 changed its ownership structure.
p> At the same time, Gazprombank and Yuri Kovalchuk's structures are developing competing media holdings. Gazprom-Media owns nine on-air (including TNT and NTV) and 32 thematic TV channels, as well as the satellite TV operator NTV + and streaming platforms Premire and Rutube. The National Media Group (21.22% belongs to Sogaz, there is no information about other shareholders) includes Channel One, REN-TV, STS and Channel Five, cable channels Discovery, Viasat and a number of others, streaming service more.tv, Izvestia portal and National Advertising Alliance advertising sale house. The president of the group is Yuri Kovalchuk's nephew Kirill Kovalchuk.
p> Alisher Usmanov has owned Mail.Ru since 2008. The Bell interlocutors claim that the entrepreneur is "tired" of the Internet business. Another source of the publication says that by the standards of the USM holding, VK's business did not bring much profit. For comparison, the metallurgical company Metalloinvest brought in $ 1.34 billion in net profit in 2020, while Mail.Ru Group - 10 billion rubles ($ 138 million).
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