Rostelecom not mulling Solar Group IPO in spring, deal by year-end to depend on key rate - CEO

MOSCOW. Feb 19 (Interfax) - Rostelecom is not looking at a spring window for an initial public share offering by its cybersecurity subsidiary Solar Group, and any prospect of a listing by the end of the year will depend on the Central Bank's key interest rate, Rostelecom CEO Mikhail Oseevsky told reporters.

"No." "We want to raise as much money as we can, and to do that, we need to minimize the cost of that money," Oseevsky said, when asked if a Solar IPO was possible during the spring window.

"We're not aiming to [hold a Solar IPO] at any price, we want to raise as much money as possible," he said.

Asked whether an IPO was possible by the end of the year, he said: "We need to find out what the rate will be at the end of the year."

Oseevsky had said back in 2024 that a Solar IPO might take place, but it was put off amid unfavorable market conditions. He said in December 2025 that Solar could hold its IPO in the first half of 2026, with the telecom's board of directors having already reached the decision to go public and the company's main legal entity, Solar Security, transformed into a joint-stock company. Oseevsky has said on numerous occasions that the Central Bank's key rate would have to fall to 10% for the IPO to go ahead.

Solar provides information security solutions to organizations ranging from small businesses to the largest companies in key sectors. Solar has divisions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Rostov, Tomsk, Khabarovsk and Izhevsk.

Solar Group's revenue grew 16% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2025 to 12.8 billion rubles. Solar CEO Igor Lyapunov said earlier that the company expected revenue growth of 20-25% for 2025 as a whole, compared to 22.3 billion rubles in 2024.