Anatoly Chubais - on the new Rusnano strategy, on reform of innovation institutions, on effective ways of investing

The Rusnano company has an ambiguous reputation, as well as its head Anatoly Chubais. To some, the results of her work seem impressive, but someone has big doubts about this. Claims against Rusnano were also made by anti-corruption Alexei Navalny. He said that even when the corporation was created in 2007, its true “goals” were understood - “fiction”, “sharashka”, “drank the budget”, “posts for troubled people” and so on.

Nevertheless, according to the plan, the company was to suffer losses until next year, but showed a profit (8.2 billion rubles) in 2014. RUSNANO is the only Russian development institution whose responsibilities include not issuing grants, not creating startups, but building large, high-tech industries. RUSNANO's net profit has more than doubled in 2015 - from 8.2 billion to almost 17 billion rubles. 2015 was a successful year for the company, judging by its reporting.

With such results, the first stage of the development of Rusnano was completed, as explained by the head of the state-owned company Anatoly Chubais. He told RBC correspondent about what the second stage of the company’s development will be, about the reform of innovative development institutions, about import substitution, about effective investment methods, and much more.

Megamind provides the most interesting quotes from the interview .

About the second stage of development of Rusnano

Maybe we ourselves did not immediately understand who we are, we did not understand what kind of animal we are. But when they figured it out, approved a new strategy, and everything fell into place. In fact, we belong to the private equity class, "venture capital funds." This means that the investment cycle lasts from six to ten years. We launched the first investments exactly eight years ago, and now they are ending, we are starting a wave of exits. Therefore, we say that our first investment period is coming to an end.

At the same time, we begin the next stage - we are creating new funds. In 2014, we collected in addition to our 7 billion rubles the same amount of external funds, last year we raised 16 billion rubles to our 16 billion rubles. In 2016, the figure is good, but nevertheless we did not reach the desired parameter: it turned out that we created six funds, of which three collapsed in December last year. In each case, there were reasons, but it was very disappointing.

Last year, income from exits amounted to several billion rubles (3.7 billion rubles - RBC cites data).

About import substitution

There are correct reasonable slogans, but there is real life. Our competitors have long worked with Russian companies for a long time, they at all levels of management understand who makes decisions, how they are made, and other details.

Nevertheless, the result: last year the company went from almost zero figures to [revenue] of more than 6 billion rubles. This year will be over 8 billion rubles.

I do not agree that Russia is lagging behind in all directions, although the chances of a breakthrough are not equally high everywhere. For example, domestic microelectronics is developing quite successfully, although we are unlikely to be able to catch up with the next generation of technologies. Moreover, in some areas there are very serious backlogs. In the field associated with the production of modern materials, we have already experienced a real world-class breakthrough. If we are able to bring our project to the end, then we are talking about a company that will be at the level of Gazprom in terms of market capitalization.

About effective ways of investing

[We] came to the conclusion that funds in relation to direct investment for us are approximately like a university in relation to high school. In this fork, we spent hundreds of hours, filled a lot of cones. If you are aiming for a foundation, you need to go to school. And we passed by making an investment with a balance. We made mistakes, but managed to get out - got to the profit, and for the second year in a row. When you have proven that you know how to work with projects, the second step is to present it to potential co-investors, for whom the main thing is results, not promises. Exactly this happened to us. Therefore, the transition to funds is the core of that second investment period.

The current situation significantly complicates the solution of technological problems. Nevertheless, the situation does not break them: we do not have a single project that would collapse due to the presence of sanctions. More difficult - yes, slower - yes, somewhere there were failures in the past year. At the same time, we do not give up our strategy and understand how to specifically implement it.

About own funds

First of all, we already have, as I said, the funds created. We have partners, including Chinese companies. For example, one of our partners is a university that manages over $ 200 billion worth of assets. They came to us with the idea of ​​creating a joint fund because they need internationalization and, therefore, a foreign partner.

For example, [with Vladimir Yevtushenkov from AFK Sistema] we created a fund together . He entrusted, under joint management, his private funds, which "mixed" with our state money.

The newly created company will specialize in high technology investments. Representatives of RUSNANO and AFK Sistema did not disclose other details. According to a source of RBC close to Rusnano, this is about $ 80–85 million. The total volume will be “a little more,” a source familiar with the details of creating the fund said. The first deals may occur before the end of the year, says one of the interlocutors of RBC.

About his request to allocate 89 billion rubles for the Russian-Indian Fund

I want first of all not about to say. Imagine that this money will not be in any form, let's completely forget about it. We have a document approved by the board of directors and approved by the government. This is a long-term business plan until 2020.

Inside it there is a financial model according to which Rusnano has sufficient reasons for attracting foreign investments for the following periods, there are balances at the end of the year that act as a guaranteed airbag, which has no failures, and so on.

In this document, there is no involvement whatsoever in any form - neither budget allocations, nor funds of the national welfare fund, none of this. There is only a clear strategy by which we move forward. And next to the strategy comes the idea: while this is an early stage of this idea called India. It is no secret that Russia and India have serious ties precisely in the field of high technologies.

There is an instruction from the president to fulfill the request, which is now being done by the relevant ministries, departments, and administration. Our companies and technology partners are involved in the development.

On the Association of Innovation Development Institutions

You know, this is like in Soviet times the idea of ​​consolidation of collective farms — disaggregation of collective farms. Nobody is going to enlarge all our collective farms now, as far as I know. It is another matter: to create in the government a so-called project office, which will, but in a sense, be the customer or coordinator of the existing institutes of innovative development - Skolkovo , RVC , us, and our other colleagues. It seems to me quite a reasonable desire.

Nevertheless, development institutions were not created at one moment in time, each has its own tasks a little ... There seems to be a need to somehow coordinate harder on all of us. But I’m not looking at it from my position, but from the position of the government. Probably, it is reasonable, we are not its opponents. Another thing - if you get to the idea of ​​merging all together, mix, this will definitely be the beginning of the end. But, fortunately, I repeat, no one is moving in this direction.

The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia have different positions regarding the reform of innovative development institutions. The Ministry of Finance proposes to concentrate most of their functions on the basis of the Skolkovo fund, joining the funds of the Russian Venture Company (RVC) to it, and also moving the office of the Fund for the Promotion of Small Business Development in the Scientific and Technical Field (Bortnik Fund) to it.

At the same time, the Ministry of Economic Development believes that it is necessary to maintain separate institutions by type of financial support, and suggests making the resident status of the innovation center accessible to companies from other technology parks.

“I would not rule out associations and, possibly, the elimination of individual institutions,” saidDeputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich in late January. Therefore, the assumption that some organizations will cease to exist as separate institutions is still valid.