Shareholders of the online retailer Ozon have approved the company's move from Cyprus to Russia. The decision was made at a meeting on December 27, 2024.
As part of the redomiciliation, the company plans to register in a special administrative region on Oktyabrsky Island in the Kaliningrad Region in the form of an international company of a public joint-stock company (ICPJSC). Currently, the holding company of Ozon is the Cypriot Ozon Holdings Limited.
The redomiciliation procedure involves the complete transfer of the shareholder structure to Russia, with all shareholders participating in the process on an equal footing. After the company is registered in the Russian Federation, trading in Ozon shares on the Moscow Exchange will be suspended for several weeks to convert depositary receipts into ICPJSC shares. The trading suspension is not expected to last more than a few weeks.
Ozon's redomiciliation was prepared against the backdrop of upcoming changes on the Moscow Exchange. In particular, from January 2025, the Moscow Exchange will introduce restrictions on the purchase of securities of quasi-foreign companies for unqualified investors.
Ozon reported that it does not plan to buy back shares from minority shareholders during the relocation process, and most of the company's major shareholders, including Western funds, left the company in the second half of 2023.
Ozon was founded in 1998 and operates in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, China, and Turkey. In 2020, it held an IPO and went public on the American NASDAQ exchange, but in 2023, the company announced its delisting from the American exchange.
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