New People leader is interested in acquiring a stake in Yandex – Kommersant
[ad_1]
The structure associated with the leader of the New People faction, Alexei Nechaev, is interested in acquiring a stake in the capital of the Russian business of Yandex, reports RBC citing sources familiar with the negotiations.
According to the interlocutor of the publication, if the division of the Yandex business takes place, then the former head of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov and the owner of Kismet Capital Group Ivan Tavrin also want to acquire a stake in its capital.
One of the sources said that the non-state pension fund Gazfond could also participate in the deal to acquire the Yandex stake.
The press service of “Yandex” refused to “comment on the rumors” at the request of RBC. Mr. Nechaev also declined to comment. RBC’s source, surrounded by Mr. Tavrin, said that Kismet is not conducting any negotiations with Yandex, but the entire investor market has been consulting on the company in one way or another for the past six months.
Changes in the structure of Yandex were announced in November 2022. The company planned to leave behind the parent company Yandex NV, registered in the Netherlands, international projects in the field of cloud technologies, and sell the rest of the services.
According to Bloomberg, billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov suggested buy out a controlling stake in Yandex. According to the agency, behind the businessmen is a group of investors, which also includes Roman Abramovich and representatives of VTB. A 51% stake in Yandex was valued at $7 billion to $7.5 billion.
Earlier, the head of VTB Andrey Kostin said that the bank may refuse to buy a stake in Yandex, since the price is higher than originally announced. VTB planned to purchase first 15%, then 10% of Yandex. At the moment, VTB owns 1.1% of Yandex shares. By opinion Mr. Kostin, if they try to sell a business without the discount provided by law for the exit of foreign investors, it is necessary to transfer it under the control of the Federal Property Management Agency, as this was done with Finnish Fortum.
Now the main shareholder of Yandex is Arkady Volozh’s LASTAR Trust (8.5% of the capital and 45.1% of the votes). 87.9% of the capital (46.5% of votes) are in free float. After the introduction of EU sanctions against Arkady Volozh, his trust stopped making decisions on voting shares.
[ad_2]
Source link
