Rutek became the majority shareholder of Agat – Russian Technologies (Agat RT) by purchasing 51% of the shares from the company’s owners. The representative of Leonid Reiman told Vedomosti about this and confirmed in both companies. The parties did not disclose the amount of the transaction. According to a person familiar with its details, the package was purchased for almost 100 million rubles.
Agat RT is a group of companies that develop solutions in the field of telephony, including recording systems, telephone notification using voice messages and sms. In 2020, the total revenue of all legal entities belonging to the Agat RT group amounted to about 160 million rubles, according to a person close to the company. The face of the group is Agat Soft LLC. The Agat RT card in the SPARK-Interfax system contains three related legal entities – Info-Telecom LLC, Svyaz.Soft.Consulting LLC and A-Electron LLC. Agat Soft and Info-Telecom LLC participated in the transaction: according to SPARK, Rutek now owns 51% in both legal entities.
Prior to the deal, Agat RT was 80% owned by businessman Yuri Anisimov. The remaining 20% belonged to the CEO of the company Dmitry Vetokhin. After the sale, their shares decreased to 39.2% and 9.8%, respectively.
Reiman previously owned MTT, which also developed telephony technology, but in 2019 he sold it. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but it could have amounted to 2–3 billion rubles, Kommersant wrote, citing a source close to the board of directors.
The acquisition of Agat RT will allow Rutek to expand its range of technological solutions and strengthen telecommuting, says Rutek CEO Andrey Bezrukov: “The technical level of Agat RT products allows it to compete with solutions from foreign manufacturers and be in demand in the domestic market.”
Also, Agat RT solutions can be added to the Rosa Linux OS, a Rutek spokesman said.
Executive Director of Agat RT Vadim Korolkov noted that as a result of the transaction, the company will receive additional financial resources necessary for the development of products, including on the basis of the Russian electronic component base – on the processors of the NPTs ELVIS and Baikal Electronics.
According to Reiman, industry integration and pooling of efforts of successful market participants is one of the most effective ways to develop Russian electronics: “This will allow us to create products with export potential.”
In the fall of 2020, Reiman told Vedomosti about plans to invest 1 billion rubles. in the creation of a full cycle of production development on the basis of “Rutek” – from the creation of an industrial site and assembly lines to research and development work. Now the company produces laptops, telecommunications equipment, video surveillance systems, security, data storage at partner facilities. All this equipment works, among other things, on the Russian operating system Rosa Linux, which was developed by another Reiman company – STC IT ROSA.
Now the market for IP telephony and office PBXs, where Agat RT operates, is shrinking, says Konstantin Ankilov, general director of TMT Consulting: “These are not the most promising technologies, they are gradually being replaced by virtual PBXs and other cloud technologies. Business is gradually abandoning IP-telephony, but government agencies will continue to use it. “
Probably, Agat RT is acquired with the prospect of reorienting specifically to cloud technologies, agrees the general director of the TelecomDaily agency Denis Kuskov: “Today, such technologies are supplied to Russia mainly by foreign vendors – Cisco, Unifi, Siemens. But since the authorities need to switch to domestic equipment as part of the import substitution program, this is a logical decision to use the player’s capabilities to localize production. “
Rutek’s products may be in demand in the public sector, Bezrukov also told Vedomosti earlier. According to the government procurement portal, Rutek already has a large customer – Rostelecom. In August 2020, the companies entered into a contract for the supply of voice gateway equipment for RUB 48 million.
Among the clients of “Agat RT” there are many government agencies and law enforcement agencies, such as the State Duma and the FSB, notes Kuskov.
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