Sberbank, Yandex to build Russian Amazon on basis of Yandex.Market

MOSCOW, Apr 28 (PRIME) – Major Russian bank Sberbank and Internet giant Yandex intend to create a local Amazon, a gigantic e-commerce and cloud computing company, on the basis of online service Yandex.Market, Sberbank CEO German Gref said late on Friday in a statement.

“The company has ambitious tasks according to the business plan we agreed upon with Yandex as shareholders. We want to build on the basis of Yandex.Market a Russian Amazon, and I hope very much that we’ll succeed,” Gref said.

Sberbank and Yandex created a joint venture based on Yandex.Market, which is owned on a parity basis. It reserved 10% of shares for future equity awards for management and employees of Yandex.Market.

The new firm is valued at 60 billion rubles. Sberbank purchased newly issued shares of Yandex.Market for 30 billion rubles. Yandex.Market CEO Maxim Grishakov will head the new joint venture.

The new joint venture will focus on the creation of an online marketplace that offers consumers a wide range of products and provides merchants with leading order processing, logistics and delivery services. The marketplace will be responsible for processing orders, servicing clients, and organizing the logistics and delivery of goods.

The firm will also develop cross-border e-commerce and continue to enhance the Yandex.Market service as a price comparison and product selection platform.

(62.7260 rubles – U.S. $1)

End