Investors bid to exchange nearly all eligible Yandex NV shares to Russian entity, consortium says

A Russian consortium main a buyout of Yandex, most steadily dubbed Russia’s Google, from its Dutch guardian firm Yandex NV said on Monday it has obtained bids from investors to change 43.9 million shares as segment of the deal.

Yandex is being bought by a consortium made up of senior Yandex Russian administration, a fund controlled by oil predominant Lukoil and three other corporations owned by businessmen Alexander Chachava, Pavel Prass and Alexander Ryazanov.

In Would possibly well presumably, the consortium launched phrases for Yandex NV shareholders to either promote their shares or substitute them for shares in the Russian entity, MKPAO Yandex. The provide become originate to owners of Yandex NV shares that delight in been purchased on the Moscow or St Petersburg exchanges.

On Monday the consortium said it had obtained bids to change 43.9 million out of an eligible 50.0 million shares..

A consortium e book said the figure of 43.9 million represented an estimated ninety 9 per cent of eligible Yandex NV shares that delight in been no longer held in so-called form C accounts.

The assets of many a ways flung places investors, including every folk and predominant U.S. funding funds, delight in been successfully blocked in form-C accounts since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and become hit by Western sanctions. Resources in these accounts can no longer be transferred out of Russia without permission from Russian authorities.

Yandex is Russia’s dominant tech firm with an array of services and products including lope-hailing and food offer as neatly as on-line search and advertising and marketing, where it has obtained market fragment since Alphabet’s Google stopped promoting on-line adverts in Russia after the originate up of the war.

The $5.2 billion sale of Yandex is the finest deal by a Western-held firm to exit Russia for the rationale that originate up of the war. It displays a crucial decrease tag of fifty per cent, as required by Russian legislation for the sale of Russian assets by guardian corporations in what Moscow considers “unsuitable” countries.

Yandex NV says it expects to rebrand itself and would possibly maybe maybe well perchance neutral take care of a portfolio of four worldwide businesses plus non-Russian assets, including a Finnish records centre, and minority investments in other tech businesses.