Sources inside the company and the investment community say that Yandex NV’s board of directors meeting, scheduled for February 5, could put an end to negotiations on the sale of Yandex’s Russian business. The deal could be closed on Monday and part of it will be the payment to the Russian budget of a 10% voluntary contribution for the withdrawal of foreign investors from the project (the so-called “exit tax”).
Anonymous speakers cited by Forbes claim that Yandex’s board of directors and potential investors are “virtually in agreement” and that the cost of the transaction will be linked to a “fair valuation”, related “indirectly and non-linearly” to the stock prices of the technology giant. on the stock exchange (currently the capitalization of Yandex on the Moscow Stock Exchange exceeds one trillion rubles).
The value of the company at a 50% discount (these are the conditions for selling assets to hostile countries) at the end of 2023 was $5.5 billion, which allowed it to reduce the “exit tax” to 10%, although The recommendations of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce include a figure of 15%.
The final figure for this “voluntary” contribution to the budget varies depending on the price of the assets sold: for larger companies options are possible, the least expensive often pay more than 15%, according to Forbes interlocutors.
Sources also claim that “it is difficult for the Americans, they say the price is catastrophically low”, but at the same time “the eyes are afraid, but the hands are busy.” According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Yandex registered an international “Fund of Administrators” in a special administrative region in the Kaliningrad region to carry out the restructuring as part of the upcoming transaction.
Previously, before the change of the legal entity that owns the corporation from Yandex NV to the international company Yandex JSC, information about the creation of this structure appeared in the Kontur.Focus service.
Already then it became clear that the potential investors in Russian assets would be Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov, and Forbes sources confirm that the list of “beneficial owners” has not changed.
Author:
Ekaterina Alipova
Source: RB
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