The Dutch Yandex N.V. and Yandex are preparing to complete the deal to sell the business in Russia to a consortium of private Russian investors.
The main owner will be the closed-end investment fund "Consortium. First" headed by Yandex managers, the vote on the sale of Russian assets will be held on March 7. 35% of the share in the closed-end investment fund - "golden shares" - will go to the "Public Interests Fund" and the "Managers Fund".
From the documents for shareholders' voting on the restructuring of the business, which were publicly available, it is known that Yandex N.V. after the sale of assets in Russia will limit its business opportunities and growth prospects. It will not be able to:
- fully exercise the rights to all Yandex technologies. However, Yandex N.V. will receive limited rights to use some of the technologies until the end of 2024;
- attract Russian Yandex employees - both current and future;
- create and develop services similar to Yandex's businesses for five years worldwide. The exceptions will be the выделяемые foreign startups Avride, Toloka, Nebius and TripleTen, which can be developed everywhere except Russia and Belarus - but developed in such a way as not to compete with Yandex services. But Yandex's access to them is closed.
At the same time, Yandex is now actively exploring new promising areas - in particular, unmanned electric vehicles. The company has posted a job advertisement for an operations engineer in China to develop an electronic control unit (ECU) for a fifth-generation unmanned vehicle in the «LinkedIn» blocked on Russian territory.
After journalists from «Kommersant» discovered this, and the information reached Russia, the company confirmed the work on this area.
We are developing a universal solution that can be used on the basis of various cars. In this regard, we are considering various platforms for creating new generation unmanned vehicles.
The fact that the Russian holding already has a viable base for this was noted in a conversation with IA «TASS» by Anton Shaparіn, Vice President of the National Automobile Union.
[...] Yandex has its own automotive operating system, voice AI assistant, and extensive experience in creating unmanned vehicles on various platforms. I believe that our IT giant will also move towards electric vehicles. It is clear that it will look for personnel and partners in China, the global leader in the electrification of transport.
It is also known that after the approval of the Yandex N.V. shareholders' meeting and receipt of all regulatory approvals, the closed-end investment fund may offer holders of class «A» shares various options for their positions in securities. This may allow retail investors to become shareholders of ICJC «Yandex» - the new parent company of Yandex - after the company enters the Moscow Exchange.