President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin agreed on the list of future owners of Yandex, which is under Ukrainian sanctions. The Russian edition of Meduza reports that a controlling stake (51%) will be shared by a “consortium of Russian billionaires”, while 49% will remain with the Dutch Yandex N.

The publication claims that four sources close to Yandex confirmed to him that on May 17, the company's corporate development adviser Alexei Kudrin personally met with Putin to discuss the sale of the Russian part of the company. As a result, four buyers remained on the list: the owner of Interros holding Vladimir Potanin, the owner of Severstal Alexei Mordashov, the founder of Lukoil Vagit Alekperov and VTB Bank.

What part of the block of shares will go to each buyer is still unknown. Presumably, the package will be approximately equally divided between all participants of the "

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Meduza's sources noted that, despite the agreement with Putin, the list of buyers may still change. The composition of the “consortium of billionaires”, their shares, as well as the amount of the transaction are to be discussed by the board of directors of the Dutch Yandex N. , head office of Yandex. Its main shareholder is the trust of the family of the founder of the company Arkady Volozh (after the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, he did not return to Russia and announced that he had decided to leave the business».

If the board of directors votes in favor, the company will establish a new subsidiary in the Russian Federation, to which all Russian and some foreign projects of Yandex will be transferred.. Next Yandex N. sell a controlling stake in this company to a “consortium of investors”, and in return receive money and licenses for a number of Yandex technologies that it will independently develop abroad (including unmanned vehicles and cloud technologies).

The deal is expected to close in autumn 2023, but the question remains as to who will be the new company's largest voting shareholder.. According to preliminary information, it will include several top managers of the company, including Kudrin. In addition, Kudrin allegedly can take the chair of the board of directors.

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Recall that the NSDC sanctions against Yandex were introduced on April 15. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the company's value fell from $31 billion to $7 billion.. The company is not in danger of going bankrupt.. But the sudden change in his fortunes serves as more than a warning to investors in an authoritarian country that is at the mercy of the whims of a single ruler,” wrote The New York Times in the summer of 2022..

In February 2023, the world's largest taxi service, Uber, sold its 29% stake (29%) in the MLU B joint venture to Yandex for $925 million..

In March 2023, Italian Prime Minister George Meloni vetoed an agreement to acquire the Dutch company Nebius of the Italian company Tecnologia Intelligente due to Nebius' ties to Yandex.. This was Meloni's first move when she used golden powers to block unwanted deals in strategic areas..