They write that the conflict around the National Computer Corporation and its daughter Group of Companies …

They writethat the conflict around the National Computer Corporation and its subsidiary Aquarius Group was resolved peacefully. Alexander Kalinin, Leonid Goldenberg and Evgeny Lachkov, as well as the chairman of the board of directors of Aquarius Group of Companies Alexey Kalinin announced the end of the conflict. All legal claims of the parties against each other have been dropped, and the parties have agreed on formal steps to terminate them. The settlement agreement changes the structure of asset ownership: service integrator SMART Technologies buys Aquarius Group of Companies from NKK, NKK itself with the rest of its subsidiaries remains with Goldenberg and Lachkov.
The parties confirm that all commercial relations between their assets remain in force. Clients are confirmed that all previously assumed obligations have been fulfilled.

SMART Technologies is 40% owned by Alexey Kalinin, the remaining 60% is equally divided between three more shareholders. At the same time, the top management of Aquarius does not change: Vladimir Stepanov remains president, moreover, he exercises the option and receives 10% of the Aquarius Group. Alexander Kalinin remains in the position of chief designer, and also becomes chairman of the supervisory board of Aquarius Group of Companies.

Now SMART Technologies and Aquarius Group of Companies will be part of the structure of the new holding SMART Holding. But Kalinin Jr. emphasizes that both companies remain independent. Management has big plans for business development: an updated strategy and a new partnership program will be presented in the first quarter of 2022. The new holding itself looks like a more than serious player in the IT market. SMART Technologies is one of the leaders in the service integrators market. Aquarius Group of Companies is the largest Russian vendor and next year it has every chance to strengthen its position, especially given the increasing demand for its products from government customers. Aquarius finished last year with revenue of 25 billion rubles. This year, the company announced a new strategy and plans to attract investment to increase the capacity of existing production sites, expand the product line and increase staff, including in R&D. As far as we know, all plans remain in place.

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In general, it is extremely rare to reach a settlement agreement from such a conflict. So this is good news not only for all participants in the dispute, but also for the entire IT market, since the largest, strategically important companies will continue to operate as usual. Obviously, lawyers on both sides did a good job here. Perhaps this result will create a positive precedent in the market of corporate disputes, and there will be more settlement agreements. In any case, this is a clear example that any, even the most complex conflict, can be resolved at the negotiating table.