RTC-Solar splits business into commercial and state segment brands

MOSCOW. Sept 15 (Interfax) - Rostelecom-Solar Group (RTC-Solar), an information security subsidiary of Russian national telecom provider Rostelecom , has launched two brands under which it will separately provide services to customers in the commercial segment and the public sector, RTC-Solar CEO Igor Lyapunov told reporters in Moscow.

"We have transitioned to a new model for managing the business. There has been a separation into two segments - a division to work with the commercial segment and to work with state entities. The group will work with the former under the brand Solar and with the latter [under the brand] Rostelecom-Information Security," Lyapunov said. The latter is the name of one of the group's companies.

However, there have not been any organizational changes in the structure of the group and none are planned, he said. All six companies in the group will provide services to both commercial and government customers, just under different brands, Lyapunov said.

He said the state sector (government agencies and entities controlled by them) accounted for about 40% of the group's revenue in 2022, which grew to 14.4 billion rubles from 10.6 billion rubles in 2021. This share is expected to remain unchanged or shrink slightly in 2023.

RTC-Solar commercial director Nikolai Sivak said revenue from sales in the commercial segment surged 75% year-on-year in the first half of 2023.

"There is reason to believe that we will double revenue from sales in the commercial segment for the year," Sivak said.

RTC-Solar M&A director Igor Kheresh said the group's has not changed its investment program, which calls for investing 22 billion rubles by 2025. The group plans to spend about half of this on acquisitions of companies (or stakes in them) with technology and know-how that is of interest to RTC-Solar and the other half on developing its own products.

The director of RTC-Solar's Cybersecurity Technology Center, Galina Ryabova said the group plans to develop and release about 20 information security products by 2027.

The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions against one of the group's companies, Solar Security LLC, on Thursday. Rostelecom-Solar told Interfax that the sanctions will not affect the company's business.

"All of Solar's solutions and technologies are now import-substituted, so the decision will not affect the company's operations. Solar will continue to operate as usual," the company said.