National Media Group to buy Medialogia

MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) - Russia's National Media Group (NMG) plans to acquire Medialogia, the developer of an eponymous mass media and social media monitoring and analysis system, the group said in a press release.

"We see potential for the company's further development and plan to use our joint competencies to expand the line of products in the area of information risk and reputation management," NMG CEO Svetlana Balanova said in the release.

Medialogia was founded by IBS in 2003. State bank VTB became the principal owner of the company in 2019. The bank said at the time that the acquisition was part of the group's private equity investment business. The banking group's subsidiary VTB Capital Finance increased its stake in Medialogia from 63% to 72.25% in October 2021. The stakes of Medialogia cofounder Sergei Matsotsky and CEO Alexander Volkov decreased from 21% to 15.75% and from 16% to 12%, respectively.

NMG has a diversified portfolio of assets in production, distribution and monetization of information and entertainment content in all media. The group's key assets include TV channels REN TV, Channel Five, CTC, Domashny, Che, CTC Love and CTC Kids; Multimedia Information Center Izvestia (including website IZ.RU, newspaper Izvestia, TV channel Izvestia, and news services on REN TV and Channel Five); and the newspapers Sport Express and Delovoi Peterburg. The group also holds a stake in Channel One.