Anton Cherepennikov, the founder of the Russian diversified IT group ICS Holding, is consolidating a 100% stake in the company previously owned by Alisher Usmanov’s USM holding division, Yuesem Telecom. This was reported to Vedomosti in the USM press service, without disclosing the commercial terms of the deal.
According to SPARK-Interfax, before that, ICS Holding was wholly owned by Yuesem Telecom. The latter is 80% owned by USM, another 10% by Cherepennikov and Vladimir Streshinsky.
Documents on the deal to buy out the shares of ICS Holding were signed at the end of February. As a result, Yuesem Telecom will retain the assets it needs to develop and operate its telecom business, support IT solutions and digital transformation — the Forpost group of IT companies, Nexign, a BSS solution provider, and OneFactor, a secure data monetization platform developer. USM recalled that MegaFon is also part of Yuesem Telecom.
ICS Holding will get the developer of servers and data storage systems Yadro, the developer of solutions in the field of information security of the Citadel Group, the research company Kryptonit, as well as projects related to the creation of a low-orbit satellite data transmission system.
The fact that USM is buying ICS Holding became known in April 2020. Then the experts interviewed by Vedomosti said that the deal would give the IT company access to Megafon’s corporate client base, and Megafon the opportunity to offer customers not only communication services, but also IT solutions that are in demand in industry, logistics and other industries.
In October 2021, the CEO of Yuesem Holding, Ivan Streshinsky, said in an interview with Kommersant that Cherepennikov would buy out ICS Holding. The top manager noted that affiliation with Megafon to a certain extent harms the business of an IT company. The tasks that were set earlier in terms of the telecom business, Streshinsky called achieved.