Russia does not nationalize “Yandex” due to fear of brain drain

The Russian authorities do not nationalize “Yandex” due to fear of brain drain from the company. This is reported by Reuters with reference to sources.

According to the interlocutors of the publication, the outflow of IT specialists could be the end of the company. At the same time, there is a risk of brain drain not only in the case of possible nationalization, but also in the case of the sale of Yandex to some state corporation.

At the end of November last year, the mass media reported that the main company of Yandex, registered in the Netherlands, Yandex NV, planned to keep international projects in the field of cloud technologies and sell the remaining projects. But, according to the latest data, negotiations on the division of the corporation’s business into international and Russian have stalled.

Bloomberg reported that billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Vagyt Alekperov were interested in buying the company. Andrey Kostin, the head of VTB, publicly expressed his interest in acquiring a stake in Yandex.

The American Institute for the Study of War reported in its report on August 10 that the Russian authorities are likely trying to nationalize Yandex in order to control the information space amid preparations for the 2023 presidential elections.

According to analysts, the Kremlin appears to be forcing Yandex to sell or distance itself from international subsidiaries, including the Yango Israel taxi service, in order to comply with Russian data disclosure laws that require Yandex to hand over all Russian and foreign user data to the FSB.

In June, a court in Moscow fined “Yandex” two million rubles for not providing the FSB with information about users of the “Yandex.Uslugy” service.

Reuters notes that it is unclear what influence the position of its co-founder Arkady Volozh may have on the sale or nationalization of Yandex. He publicly condemned military actions for the first time since the beginning of the war against Ukraine. In his statement, the businessman noted that he focused on supporting Russian engineers who decided to leave the country.

Volozh is a citizen of Israel. He has not lived in Russia since 2014. The businessman headed Yandex NV and was a member of its board of directors. He made the decision to leave the company in June 2022 after falling under EU sanctions.

The other day, in his biography on his personal website, Volozh called himself “an Israeli businessman born in Kazakhstan” and never once mentioned that he lived and did business in Russia for a long time.

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