No franchise in Russia and no business in Belarus. CEO of Parimatch Tech on working in hostile markets and outsourcing the company

In March, Parimatch Tech announced that the company was leaving Russia, and in June — that it was leaving the Belarusian market. However, information spread in the media and social networks that the statements are fictitious and in fact the company continues to work in hostile markets.

On June 8, Maxim Lyashko, CEO and Member of the Supervisory Board of Parimatch Tech, publicly told what is happening with business in Russia and Belarus today. In addition, he shared his plans for the company's development. Now half of the holding will be engaged in outsourcing — the company will sell its own software and other developments to other businesses. Key theses can be found in the DOU article.

Withdrawal from Belarus and the Russian Federation: context

At the end of March, Parimatch announced that it was leaving Russia. The franchise, as they say in Parimatch, was finally withdrawn on March 26, and therefore co-operation with the aggressor was stopped.

"Russia is disconnected from the Parimatch Tech software and has no right to use the Parimatch brand in any formats and on any platforms. No rebranding or restyling. the Russian Federation was disconnected from all exclusive and general technology solutions of Parimatch Tech Holding. That is, the Parimatch platform no longer works in Russia," the company stressed.

In June, the company officially announced that the Parimatch brand is leaving Belarus and transferring the business to a local team.

"The holding transfers support for services and clients to the management of the local local team of Belarus, which is no longer part of Parimatch holding. The holding will no longer make a profit from the company operating in Belarus either today or in the future," the company added.

However, since May, various media and social networks have reported that in fact Parimatch continues to work in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. It was said that the brand is still active in Russia, Parimatch advertising is everywhere in Belarus, and so on.

"After disguising itself as The New Paribet brand, the company retained all the previous betting services and amounts on players' accounts on the new platform. At the same time, since April, Paribet has been receiving software from another Russian bookmaker, Fonbet, which then changed its website address from fonbet[.]ru on fon[.] bet and began to work under the license of LLC "pin-AP.Ru" instead of LLC " F. O.N.", - wrote one of the IT specialists on LinkedIn.

That is, the company was accused of making all statements about leaving the enemy markets fictitious — it only changed its name and continues to pay taxes to the budgets of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.

Parimatch Tech's position on exiting the Russian and Belarusian markets

On June 8, Maxim Lyashko, CEO and Member of the Supervisory Board, said that the company left the Russian market in March of this year, and in 2-3 weeks it will leave the company's management in Belarus — there the business will be transferred to local top management.

"In Russia, we worked as a business franchise, we had a local partner and it was difficult to disable contracts from a legal point of view. We had three contracts: two for software, one for a brandbook, and one for a trademark. The company with which we had contracts works. But it has different software, founders, partners, coefficients, etc.," says Lyashko.

In addition, according to him, the occupiers use the brand of their company "to the extent of confusion, there are manipulations with the name." At best, in Russia they change the name, signage and colors, but mostly they try to use what they have, says the CEO of Parimatch Tech.

In Belarus, the company will receive top management of Parimatch: it will be acquired by the management director (50%), the CFO, and a minor share will remain with a partner who was already in the holding in this territory.

"This is not a gift, we are selling the business. For people who buy it, this is very significant money, but for us it is approximately 5-7% of the real value of this asset," says Lyashko.

Parimatch Tech explained its decision to withdraw from the RB market in this way by the attitude of Belarusians to the war in Ukraine. Since most people do not support it, the company decided to leave the case so that former employees could continue to work and receive salaries, even if not from the holding.

"We are currently coordinating a technical plan for changing software and contracts with Belarus. As a holding company, we will not provide our services, data, analytics, games, etc. In fact, after the agreement, Belarus will switch to an autonomous existence," the CEO of Parimatch Tech added.

Due to the exit from the two markets, the company will lose approximately 40 million euros per year.

Lyashko also noted that information about the company's work in Russia and Belarus after the war is distributed by competitors. Parimatch Tech appealed to law enforcement agencies because of slander and is waiting for "specific cases", because they already know who is involved in the appearance of custom materials. However, he did not give names, referring to the secrecy of the investigation.

B2B segment and outsourcing: how the holding will develop

Parimatch Tech said that for the first time in its history, the company will work in the B2B segment.

"To put it roughly, we are outsourcing — we give half of our holding company for this," maxim Lyashko explained.

Now the company plans to sell the software it developed without the Parimatch brand. It will be offered to large companies from the industry.

"We will not compete with well-known brands whose products are used by small and medium-sized companies. We will monetize our developments by selling them to large betting companies, because 8 out of 10 operators do not work on their own software. They are ready to switch to other software if the provider is able to provide a certain boutique approach," Lyashko said.

Parimatch Tech will also offer its own mobile applications, payment practices, CRM system, database processing approaches, etc.

Now the company is creating separate divisions that will deal with this area, as well as making changes to the software and other developments so that they can be used by third-party businesses. According to Lyashko, the first connections in the B2B segment are expected next year.

Today, Parimatch is present in 11 markets, the largest of which are Asian, African and Ukrainian.

Prague office development plans

Lyashko emphasizes that there were no layoffs in the company, it was optimization (15% of specialists fell under it). Many of those who were" optimized " were engaged in Analytics, forecasts, development of plans and features for the future in the next 5-7 years.

"We found ourselves in a situation where such long-term plans have become irrelevant. But employees will receive compensation until the end of martial law, our HR staff helps with job search, although people are no longer part of the team," Lyashko said.

On May 1, the Parimatch Tech office in Prague opened. In the future, they want to expand it to 200 specialists in a few months or years. However, now there are 18 employees in the Czech Republic who moved from Ukraine. In addition, several vacancies are currently open, but they are mostly administrative. The office will hire specialists from Ukraine who are ready to move to Prague in the coming months.

"We need to hire new specialists with B2B experience, which we don't have. That's why we opened a new office," Lyashko summed up.