AMSTERDAM/MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) – The Russian-Dutch group Yandex NV, based in Amsterdam, says it is selling its Russian business to a group of investors. “The total compensation amounts to 475 billion rubles” (4.8 billion euros), the company said in a press release on Monday. Half of the sum will be paid in cash, the other half in Yandex NV shares. Yandex emphasized that the negotiated purchase price corresponds to the 50 percent discount currently demanded by Russia’s leadership compared to the fair value of the company.
A discount as a condition for a sales permit from the Russian government applies to foreign investors whose country of origin Moscow considers “unfriendly”. This also includes the Netherlands, which, as a Western state, has imposed sanctions because of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
The buyer is a consortium consisting of the Russian management of Yandex and a number of financial investors. Mentioned by name are the investment fund Argonaut, which belongs to the oil company Lukoil (LUKOIL Oil Company), Infinity Management from the IT entrepreneur Alexander Tschatschawa, the company IT-Elaboration from the previously largely unknown businessman Pawel Prass and Meridian-Servis from Alexander Ryazanov, who works in the oil industry.
The independent Internet portal “The Bell” reports, citing its own sources, that some of the buyers mentioned could act as middlemen for other interested parties who are subject to Western sanctions.
Yandex was founded in 1997 by computer scientist and IT entrepreneur Arkadi Wolosch. In 2011 he took the company public in New York – after the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression, the shares were excluded from trading on the Nasdaq. To date, Yandex is the best-known search engine in Russian-speaking countries, but has also developed numerous other business areas, from streaming to online taxis to delivery services. The Russian business sold accounts for around 95 percent of the Yandex Group’s capital, according to the press release.
Volosh, who has lived in Israel since 2014, had been selling since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression. That of the Kremlin chief Wladimir Putin He condemned the ordered invasion in the fall of 2023 as “barbaric.” With the remaining share in Yandex’s Dutch parent company, he wants to concentrate primarily on the development of artificial intelligence./bal/DP/men