Yandex says board considers investors’ bids, mgmt to control firm

MOSCOW, May 25 (PRIME) -- The board of directors of Yandex N.V., the Dutch parent of Russian Internet company Yandex, has received and considered all the bids to acquire various packages of the economic share in the company, the firm said on Thursday in a statement.

The bids will be checked for compliance with the sanctions restrictions. New economic investors will not control the company. As under the previous corporate structure, the management team will keep control.

All the changes suggested by the board are to be approved by Yandex N.V.’s shareholders.

The board said it has not made a decision on the investment proposals yet.

Bloomberg reported earlier quoting sources that Yandex N.V. received bids from billionaires Vladimir Potanin and Vagit Alekperov to acquire control in the search engine.

VTB Bank CEO Andrei Kostin also said that the bank as part of a consortium of investors is interested in the acquisition of a stake in Yandex.

“We are progressing on plans for the divestment of ownership and control of a number of our core businesses, including all Russia-based businesses, and have received proposals from a number of potential investors. The board also aims to enable the international divisions of certain services – self-driving, cloud computing, data labeling and ed-tech – to develop independently from the Russia-based businesses,” Yandex N.V. said.

“Our goal is to bring a restructuring proposal to shareholders for approval later this year,” the company added.

The board said it is still analyzing numerous options that could be offered to the existing shareholders under the restructuring.

“Businesses of self-driving cars, cloud technologies, educational services, and platforms on data labeling will continue to work on the Russian market,” a Yandex spokesperson said.

The company confirmed that international parts of these directions will be spun off into independent firms under Yandex N.V.’s management.

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