RUSNANO Approves Long-Term Development Program

The state-owned company plans to reduce the share in new funds to 20% by 2020, replacing its own investments with third-party financing. Thus, Rusnano intends to gradually move on to the development of the nanoindustry with the active involvement of private capital.

According to Vedomosti, the new Rusnano development program was prepared on behalf of the government. The company clearly outlined its plans for the development of the domestic nanotechnology sector, intending to maximize the use of outside capital. At the same time, it is planned to form investment funds that will be controlled by the Rusnano management company, but at the same time, the board of directors intends to gradually reduce the share of the state-owned company from 50% in 2016 to 20% by 2020.

Time will tell whether the enterprise succeeds in implementing its plans. At the moment, Rusnano was not able to achieve great success. So, in a recent report of the Expert Council under the Government of Russia on the assessment of the activities of Russian development institutions, it is reported that the activities of the state-owned company are characterized by “significant investment losses and insufficient operational efficiency”. The members of the Expert Council pay special attention to the ratio of the level of operating costs and the value of assets managed by Rusnano, which is significantly inferior to the performance of foreign investment companies (among the latter 3i, SilverLake and Mubadala are called). For example, according to the results of 2014, this indicator of foreign projects amounted to an average of about 1.4%, while the domestic state-owned company reached only 3.4%.

According to experts, such a significant decrease in the share of investments will negatively affect the company's reputation and its attractiveness to potential partners. According to Alexander Galitsky, managing partner of Almaz Capital Partners, this reform will ultimately reduce the influence of Rusnano on the management of the joint project - now another company, being the lead investor in the project, will be able to dictate its terms. Another expert, managing partner of the InVenture Partners fund, Sergei Azatyan, is confident that the company will lose the opportunity to participate in the development of small but promising projects that could just start working with Rusnano, failing to get financing from market investors.

However, the state-owned company strongly disagrees with such statements. According to a representative of Rusnano, an increase in the share of private capital will only confirm the attractiveness of partnership with the enterprise and the development of the domestic nanotechnology industry as a whole.