The co-owner of Lukoil Vagit Alekperov, the owner of Severstal Alexei Mordashov and structures of Vladimir Potanin will take part in the consortium for the purchase of a controlling stake in Yandex. The Bell and Meduza write about this, citing their own sources.
According to them, a few months ago, Yandex consultants sent out an offer to Russian billionaires to buy Russian assets of Yandex, which are being sold by Yandex NV, registered in the Netherlands, controlled by the trust of the family of Yandex founder Arkady Volozh. Now, according to sources, there is a discussion of a price that will suit not only the seller and buyers, but also the Russian government, which has established severe restrictions for foreign investors selling Russian assets: in particular, according to current requirements, they can only be sold at a discount of at least 50%.
As noted, the capitalization of Yandex, which in the best of times reached almost $30 billion, dropped to $17 billion by the beginning of the war. Taking into account all the requirements of the government, now the company can be sold for no more than $7.6 billion.
After the outbreak of the war, Volozh decided not to return to Russia and get rid of the Russian business, switching to his Western projects. The former head of the Accounts Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, who took over as corporate development adviser at Yandex last year, handled negotiations with potential investors and agreed to the sale in the Kremlin.
In June 2022, Volozh was included in the EU sanctions list, after which he left all posts at Yandex and resigned from the board of directors.