PRESS: Business agrees to soft limit of foreign money in capital

MOSCOW, Nov 6 (PRIME) -- Russian business is ready to limit foreign participation in significant Internet resources, including Yandex, at 49% with only voting shares taken into account to reduce investment risks, business daily Kommersant reported on Wednesday, quoting the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.

The union underlined that only corporate control should be regulated, not economic participation. The body sent its opinion on November 1 to Chairman of the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin.

The State Duma received the bill seeking to limit foreign capital in significant online resources with 20%, and the government supported it if the threshold is set at 50% minus one share of voting shares. The initiative aims officially to develop technological independence and security of information infrastructure of the country.

The bill’s author Anton Gorelkin said the move would mainly impact Yandex, which will have to revise its ownership structure.

The union also said that the limit of foreign capital is exceeded in such companies as the country’s biggest mobile operator MTS and bank Sberbank, as well as in recruiting service HeadHunter.

A HeadHunter spokesperson said that the company “does not function in any sphere that is critically important for the economy of the Russian Federation, and we think any proposals to add this or that firm, including HeadHunter, to the list of objects of regulation by the new bill as premature and speculative.”

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