The owner of Yandex will be responsible for his words – Kommersant

The conditions for dividing Yandex’s assets between its Russian and international structures, which are being discussed in the relevant government commission, have changed due to criticism of military actions by the company’s co-founder Arkady Volozh, Frank Media reported and sources confirmed to Kommersant. According to unofficial information, first of all we are talking about the financial component – the amount that was supposed to go to the Dutch Yandex NV decreased from $250 million to $70-80 million. Experts believe that the prospect of lifting sanctions for Mr. Volozh is more important than the amount of the transaction.

After the August statement by Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, in which he condemned the military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, the authorities’ attitude towards the process of dividing the company’s assets changed, say Frank Media sources and a Kommersant interlocutor close to the government commission on foreign investment: “The company actually showed its attitude towards Russia, therefore there is a clear position that the conditions for the sale of the asset will change for the worse, including in terms of cost.”

A Kommersant source close to the government clarified that preliminary documents on the deal were received in the spring, but “then the parameters were revised.” However, Kommersant’s interlocutor, close to the Ministry of Digital Development, claims that only documents on the restructuring of assets, as well as on the deal on Uber’s exit from Yandex, were transferred to the commission (see Kommersant on April 21). According to him, the commission has not yet received documents with a scheme for the sale of Yandex NV Russian business. Meanwhile, according to Frank Media, the commission initially agreed on payments for Yandex’s obligations to the parent Yandex NV in the amount of $250 million, and now the amount has dropped to $70–80 million.

Yandex NV presented a plan for dividing assets in November 2022. The company itself wanted to develop the international parts of four Yandex business areas: cloud services, autonomous transport, data tagging (object identification for machine learning) and education. In September, a Kommersant source close to one of the parties to the deal said that the plans had not changed (see Kommersant on September 8). RBC reported in June that the stake in the Russian Yandex is claimed by the founder of LUKOIL Vagit Alekperov, the owner of Kismet Capital Group (KCG) Ivan Tavrin and a structure associated with the leader of the “New People” faction in the State Duma Alexei Nechaev. VTB also expressed interest in Yandex, but in June the head of the bank, Andrei Kostin, said that he did not see the point in a “market deal.”

In its reporting to investors, the latest version of which (for the second quarter) was published in July, Yandex promised to disclose a plan for dividing assets by the end of the year. There are already indirect signs of change. So, in June, the foreign educational business of Yandex, which was called Practicum by analogy with the Russian-language Yandex Practicum, was renamed TripleTen. The company also announced that the Toloka data tagging service will focus on foreign clients, while a separate Yandex Tasks platform has been launched for the Russian Federation (see Kommersant on July 26). Yandex declined to comment; the Ministry of Digital Development and the subcommittee for issuing permits for transactions did not respond to requests.

With a striking statement, Arkady Volozh is also trying to get EU sanctions lifted from himself, notes chief analyst of the RegBlock company Anna Avakimyan, and if successful, the businessman “can neglect” the increased costs of dividing Yandex’s assets: “Exiting sanctions can bring it an economic profit of at least $500 million against an accounting loss of about $150 million.” Profit, she said, refers to the estimated capital gain obtained through unfreezing part of the assets and creating a high-tech business abroad.

The division of Yandex assets, according to Ms. Avakimyan, is nearing completion: “The mediation of Alexei Kudrin (former chairman of the Accounts Chamber, since December – corporate development adviser at Yandex) had an impact.” “Kommersant”)”. However, says Karen Kazaryan, CEO of the Internet Research Institute, “there is no confidence that the company will reveal the details before the end of the year.”

Yuri Litvinenko, Yulia Tishina