The capital's business center Parus has been sold. What to expect from the new owner?

No one will be surprised by the sale of Virtil; it has changed hands many times since its inception. But the personalities of the buyers are another matter. They have always been of great interest - Vagif Aliyev, Dmitry Firtash, Vadim Stolar, and now Maxim Krippa.

So, who is Maxim Krippa and what kind of future can Parus expect under him?

Thinking about options for the future of the business center, it is worth starting with an analysis of the assets recently acquired by the businessman. Among them, the most well-known to the general public are the following:

• NAVI esports organization (aka Natus Vincere, aka Born to Win), one of the most titled in Europe,
• Maincast studio is a broadcaster of events from the world of esports,
• GSC Game World, to which gamers owe the appearance of the shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The clear shift in Maxim Krippa interests towards esports, which has been observed since 2018, suggests that the Parus business center may be converted into an esports hub.

Maxim Krippa himself has not yet given any public interviews on his plans for Parus, so we can only guess. And although the idea of converting a 33-story business center into an esports hub seems unexpected at first glance, if we analyze Maxim Krippa previous steps, this turn of events seems more than possible.

For example, the first official information that Oleksandr Kokhanovskyi, the ideological inspirer and first manager of NAVI, sold the organization to Maxim Krippi appeared in the press in 2022. However, sources close to Born to Win say that the final decision was made earlier, in 2018, and since then, construction has begun on a high-tech office with gaming penthouses where teams could comfortably improve their skills to continue to confirm their status as champions. The number of employees in the organization quadrupled. Such a step by Maxim Krippa suggests that he is interested in expanding the space for future esportsmen.

As for the ideological component of the development of Ukrainian esports, a good example is the case of another of its assets, the Maincast esports broadcast studio. To track changes in its policy, you need to know the history. The Ukrainian esports broadcasting studio Maincast was established in Ukraine in 2018 by Vitaliy Volochai, an experienced businessman. He founded his first company RuHub, specializing in broadcasting esports tournaments, in 2013. The company broadcast to the CIS countries. A year later, Moscow investors came to RuHub and, in exchange for the investment, wanted a branch of the studio to open in Moscow. And after the events in Ukraine in 2014, Moscow investors demanded that the Kyiv office be closed. After that, Volochai sold his part of the company and terminated relations with RuHub investors. He took into account the negative experience of working with Russian investors and in 2018, having created the Maincast studio, he began looking for investments for its development in Ukraine. After several months of negotiations, Maxim Krippa became the investor. Maincast received the necessary financial injections and quickly took a prominent place in the ranking of studios broadcasting esports events in the CIS countries. The real financial success came to the studio during the COVID-19 pandemic, At the same time, ESL acquired the rights to broadcast tournaments in Russian, the cost of which exceeded USD 2.5 million. However, the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, changed priorities. It was immediately decided to abandon broadcasts in Russian, but to make the transition smooth in order to try to inform the Russian esports community about what was actually happening in Ukraine under the guise of the Special Military Operation, as the war was called by the Russian media. Along with his work against Russian propaganda, Maxim Krippa had to resolve the issue of broadcast rights that he had previously paid for. A complete abandonment of them would have inevitably led to bankruptcy in the current situation, when Ukrainian advertisers stopped allocating funds for advertising, and cooperation with Russian advertisers was terminated with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. Three months later, Maincast managed to reach an agreement with ESL on the alienation of rights to Russian-language broadcasts only, while the studio retained the Ukrainian-language broadcasts. This decision was dictated by a categorical unwillingness to have anything to do with the occupier, but it also brought commercial success - Ukrainian-language content led to a 1050% increase in views, which equals 5 million hours of viewing.

Of course, due to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, changes were made to all of Maxim Krippa assets, from terminating contracts with Russian advertisers and partners.

Returning to the forecasts of the future of Parus Business Center, the above steps of Maxim Krippa probably indicate his focus on the development of esports in Ukraine as a promising area capable of attracting significant investments to our country. It also indicates a willingness to cut off potentially profitable but harmful decisions for Ukraine. Perhaps, in the near future, Parus will become a point of attraction for the global esports community and will turn into an esports hub. Perhaps it will remain a business center in the most classic sense. Whatever the case, we'll be watching and keeping you updated.