Rostelecom acquires a leading e-waste management developer
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30.11.2020
Moscow, Russia – November 30, 2020 – Rostelecom group (MOEX: RTKM, RTKMP; OTCQX: ROSYY), the largest integrated digital service provider in Russia, today announces that it has acquired 1% shares of Big3, a developer and provider of complex IT systems for waste and environmental management. The group has also signed a call-option agreement to increase Rostelecom’s participation to 51%, subject to exercising in H1 2021. The total value of the deal stands at RUB 1.275 billion, including call option exercise.
The acquisition will strengthen Rostelecom’s leading position in the e-waste management market, which is projected to reach over RUB 20 billion within five coming years. Big3 will join Rostelecom as a subsidiary company, while retaining key staff and competencies.
Big3 is a Russian IT company and software developer aiming at facilitating ecology issues. A leader in the digitalisation of waste and environmental management and software e-waste market, the Company’s products have been already implemented in over 60 regions. Big3 ensures fully automatization and digitalisation of business process across regional waste operators while their solutions can model the industry operations both at a level of particular territory as well as at a nationwide scale. The Company’s 2020 revenues are expected to reach RUB 1 billion.
“The acquisition of Big3 is a strategic milestone for Rostelecom in the establishment of a new highly perspective business cluster, which can be easily compared to such cornerstone businesses as cyber security and cloud. Waste management and environmental responsibility as a whole are becoming incredibly important for companies in every sector and government authorities at the federal and regional levels. The significant investment in the development of IT systems in this space within the national Project “Ecology”, recently launched by the Russian Government, opens significant opportunities leveraging Big3’s competencies and digital solutions. This is especially relevant to expanding and complementing our range of services given that a large number of Rostelecom’s clients are deeply involved in the smart city and smart region projects where the nationwide scale of our operations makes us an undisputable leader.”
“The Big3 acquisition presents a new highly prospective source of growth, offering the potential to increase the scale of our digital offering, complemented by complex IT systems for environmental management. We have already started to mature some opportunities to expand this new cluster, and have been focusing in particular on the ways of digitising the management of medical waste which presents epidemiological danger. In light of the COVID-19 pandemics, the amount of PPE waste including facemasks and single-use gloves that need to be sterilised, disinfected or recycled, has increased substantially, and it is crucial to ensure that reliable control measures and management tools and systems are in place. This process can be significantly advanced and improved in efficiency with the use of Rostelecom’s digital solutions.”
Further information is available at https://www.company.rt.ru/en/ir/news_calendar/.