One of the largest IT holdings in Russia, Lanit, has completed the reorganization procedure: Lanit-Holding LLC has become a joint-stock company. Experts interviewed by RB.RU believe that we can talk about both preparation for an IPO and reducing the risk of sanctions for the company.
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- Lanit-Holding LLC ceased operations on April 10, 2024, according to data from the Kontur.Focus system. The successor was Lanit-Holding JSC, which is now the founder of 23 legal entities that are part of the Lanit group. The main activity of the LLC was investments in securities. The new legal entity maintained continuity in this part.
- According to the Kontur.Focus system, from September 2017 to September 16, 2022 (latest available data), the main owner of Lanit-Holding LLC was Philipp Gens – 99% of the authorized capital. As of July 2019, 1% belongs to CEO Alexander Mikhailov. The net profit of the LLC at the end of 2023 amounted to 2.1 billion rubles, up from 6.6 billion rubles in 2022.
- The holder of the register of shareholders of JSC Lanit-Holding is JSC Independent Registrar Company ROST, the general director is Alexander Mikhailov.
Lanit’s press service did not comment on the changes.
Boris Romanov, project director at law firm S&K Vertical, believes that reorganization of a company can pursue several goals at the same time.
“This simplifies the process of preparing for an initial public offering, since the process of entering the stock exchange involves in any case the issuance of shares of the company,” Romanov said. “In addition, reorganization into a joint-stock company, as a rule, reduces the risks of sanctions for the company itself, its subsidiaries and counterparties.”
Thus, the list of LLC participants can be established by referring to an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, while the register of joint-stock companies is maintained by a registrar, which is closed to public access and can only be provided at upon request. shareholders, authorized government bodies or the court, the expert noted.
Therefore, if one of the shareholders suffers personal sanctions from the US or the EU, this will not automatically mean the imposition of sanctions against the company itself, Romanov continues. And vice versa: shareholders will not automatically be subject to financial sanctions if they are introduced in connection with the company’s activities.
Another reason, according to him, is due to the fact that transactions with shares of the joint stock company are not public, which also makes it possible to reduce sanctions and compliance risks when changes occur in the composition of the organization’s minority shareholders.
Marianna Movsesyan, CEO of the investment company New Venture Brokerage, also agrees that a change in the organizational form of ownership of Lanit-Holding may be a preliminary stage of an IPO.
“If we are talking about preparation for an initial public offering, then everything goes logically: the register of shareholders of an LLC is public, while that of a JSC is closed, which constitutes a kind of insurance against foreign sanctions. Business reorganization in this format is nothing new for the Russian segment of high-tech and IT companies,” says Movsesyan.
According to her, preparation for an IPO is usually multi-level, but the first steps are as follows: the company conducts a financial audit, prepares and orders financial reports and documents confirming ownership, and develops a business plan.
Author:
Anastasia Marina
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
