The Central Bank decided to register the shares of Skilbox Holding in view of a possible IPO

According to the regulator, the decision comes into force from the moment of state registration of the company. The securities issue was assigned registration number 1-01-17014-A.

Against this background, shares of VK, which controls the educational holding Skillbox, grew by 7.4%, reaching a maximum of 332.6 rubles per share, according to data from the Moscow Stock Exchange. Yaroslav Kabakov, chief strategy officer of Finam Financial Group, told RBC that expectations are beginning to emerge in the market that VK is preparing to conduct an initial public offering of Skillbox shares.

In March 2024, RBC, citing a source, reported that VK had returned to its plans to conduct an IPO of Skillbox. A Skillbox representative told the publication that the company “does not exclude the possibility of an IPO to further strengthen the holding’s leading position in the Russian EdTech market,” but declined to provide details. Finam Financial Group analyst Leonid Delitsyn noted that during the IPO, Skillbox could receive a valuation of 55 billion rubles.

• Skillbox was founded in 2016 by its current CEO Dmitry Krutov, Business Youth co-founder Igor Koropov (died November 2020), and Sergey Popkov (shareholder and chief designer of creative studio AIC). In February 2019, VK acquired a 3.6% stake in Skillbox and in December increased its stake in the company to 60.3%.

• In August 2021, VK, in partnership with the founders of Skillbox and the private foundation of entrepreneur Alexander Galitsky, created the educational holding Skillbox Limited based on the Skillbox and GeekBrains platforms. Control of the holding remained in the hands of VK (50.06%), 22.72% of the shares were received by the founders of Skillbox, 14.21% by the Galitsky Foundation and 13% were reserved for a program long-term motivation for employees.