March 04, 2013. Vympelcom, a telecommunications company, sold Yekaterinburg’s largest web portal e1.ru. The portal was purchased by Hearst Shkulev Media/Inter Media Group publishing house. The asset was put up to sale because this is not Vympelcom’s core business activity, the company’s Senior PR Manager in the Urals Svetlana Rychkova reports. No details of the transactions have been announced as of yet.

‘The sale has to do with the fact that this is only a secondary-activity asset for the company. I’m afraid I cannot give you any details just now, but it is already certain that the top management will get to keep their jobs for the time being,’ Ms Rychkova said.

Inter Media Group has offered no comment so far.

In fact, it was known as early as in the spring of 2012 that Vympelcom might sell this asset. However, the company’s press service denied any possibility of a sale, claiming it was what you call a newspaper hoax.

Now e1.ru is Russia’s largest local Internet portal. As to how much the deal was worth, this could actually be millions of rubles.