A company from Kaliningrad became the owner of Yandex legal entity

The owner of the main legal entity of “Yandex” in Russia, instead of the Dutch Yandex NV, became the international company “Yandex”, registered offshore in the Kaliningrad region. Data about this appeared in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities on January 22, Interfax reports.

MKAO “Yandex” was registered in the special administrative district on Oktyabrsky Island in Kalynigrad at the end of December 2023.

The transfer of assets from Yandex NV to the Russian “subsidiary” is one of the key stages of the company’s sale. It is assumed that the owner of this company will be a “consortium of investors”.

In November, Reuters, citing sources, reported that Yandex NV is considering the possibility of selling all of its Russian assets at once by the end of 2023. Taking into account the requirement to sell the asset at a 50% discount, the value of the transaction was estimated at five to six billion dollars.

Reuters interlocutors noted that the Russian authorities are not nationalizing “Yandex” due to fear of brain drain from the company.

Earlier, the business media wrote that Yandex’s business could be divided into an international and a Russian part, while the Russian part was supposed to go to investors from Russia. “Meduza” and The Bell wrote in May that Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his consent to the deal on the Yandex section.

Later, publications wrote that the list of potential buyers of the Russian part of Yandex approved by Putin, which included Vladimir Potanin, Alexey Mordashov, Vagyt Alekperov and VTB Bank, did not appoint foreign directors to the board of Yandex. They are said to have refused to do business with potential buyers who are subject to sanctions or other Western sanctions.

On December 27, Forbes reported that potential buyers of Yandex’s Russian business became its shareholders without waiting for the company’s restructuring. Among them, according to the publication, is the owner of “Nornikel” Vladimir Potanin.