Roman Abramovich is set to reduce his stake in Russia’s leading broadcaster Channel One.
According to RBC and AKTR, he currently owns 24% through ORT-KB and will sell 4% in order to comply with media legislation, which since January 2016 has limited the level of foreign ownership in Russian media companies to 20%.
They add that Abramovich took out Israeli citizenship last month but has no intention of selling his entire stake, rather reducing it to the maximum permissible amount.
The most likely buyer of the 4% of Channel One is understood to be the National Media Group (NMG).
Channel One is currently majority owned (51%) by the Russian state, with 24% of shares being held by NMG through a company named Rastrkom-2002.
