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Naspers and DST Forticom in talks to pool Polish social networks Gadu-Gadu and Nasza-klasa.pl

By amarndra bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:February 8, 2010

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DST (Digital Sky Technology) -owned holding Forticom, a Russian Internet holding company which holds a 75 percent stake in Polish social networking portal Nasza-Klasa.pl (Facebook-of-Poland ), is reported to be holding talks with South African’s Naspers , which owns the Polish Gadu Gadu internet messaging service, over the possible merger.

Gadu-Gadu, wholly owned by Naspers, has 15 million registered users, and the Nasza-Klasa.pl, 70% owned by Forticom, claims over 23 million registered users. Forticom also owns social networks Odnoklassniki.ru in Russia and One.lv & One.lt in Latvia and Lithuania. Poland claims over 20 million Internet users.

Naspers/MIH Group and DST together own the largest Russian online portal Mail.ru together with Tiger Global. DST’s Forticom holds 25 percent in Russia’s top social network Odnoklassniki.ru.

According to Kommersant, a Russian daily, the South African company is currently undergoing a due dilligence review of a handful of social networking sites, including the Russian Odnoklassniki.ru, the Lithuanian and Latvian One.lt and One.lv respectively, as well as Poland’s most popular answer to Facebook.

Kommersant suggests that the possible merger between Nasza-Klasa.pl and Gadu Gadu would result in greater advertising possibilities and lowering of costs related to such services.

Tatiana Menkova, an analyst quoted by the paper, states that “if the two companies are currently breaking even, six months after a possible merger could see them making a profit.”

Both DST and Naspers declined to comment to Kommersant on the speculation, but it would bring two of Poland’s biggest internet ventures together. According to Kommersant, there are 27 million registered users of Nasza-Klasa.pl and 7 million Gadu Gadu users globally.

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