“Soup” will be combined with “Poster-Rambler”. And why is all this necessary?

We, the editors of Roem.ru, have just received a press release saying that “Soup” and “Rambler-Poster” are uniting:

A&NN Investment Group Alexander Mamut and Interros Holding Vladimir Potanin decided to merge their Internet assets. The combined company accumulates more than 35 million unique visitors on its websites and will occupy the third largest audience on the Russian-speaking Internet.

Alexander Mamut will become the managing shareholder and chairman of the board of directors.

Interestingly, the “Soup” is now far from rising and generally unprofitable. LiveJournal does not scold only the lazy. Gazeta.ru has just left editor-in-chief Mikhail Kotov, who has worked in the publication for 13 years. Forbes

commentators give the answer :

According to Forbes, a source familiar with the details of the negotiations, billionaires did not evaluate the value of their assets in anticipation of the transaction: “Both agreed to combine the assets. Potanin does not have a person who could and would like to manage his Internet assets . There was Akopov (Rafael Akopov, former president of Profmedia holding, of which the combined company Afisha and Rambler. - Forbes is a part), but he left. So Potanin was looking for this deal no less than Mamut. ”

And not only that:

According to IMHO VI Chairman of the Board Arsen Revazov, the main point of the new alliance is traffic exchange . “If someone used to buy traffic because they lacked it, today it is legal and honest. In addition, if the new holding manages to centralize the advertising sales system, profitability will certainly increase, ”he says.

Indeed, Rambler.ru bought traffic on Market Guide - now the company will not have such a need. It seems that the united company wants to build the same monstrous network to transfer traffic from project to project, as in RBC, where traffic flows freely between Anekdot.ru, Rbc.ru and other publications of the holding