Dutch parent company sells Russian unit of Yandex, known as 'Google of Russia'

Dutch parent company sells Russian unit of Yandex, known as 'Google of Russia'

Tuesday, 6 February 2024

The owner of Yandex, known as 'Russia's Google', has said that the company has sold its Russian operations.

Yandex's Dutch parent company said it has sold its Russia operation for 475 billion rubles. This price is much lower than the market price of Yandex.

With this sale, it has been decided that the ownership of Yandex's Russian business will now be completely with Russia.

There were allegations against this company that it hid information about the war in Ukraine from the common people of Russia.

Russia has welcomed this new deal. The company said the deal “follows an extensive period of planning and negotiations spanning over 18 months.”

"This is what we wanted to achieve a few years ago when Yandex was under threat of capture by Western IT companies," said Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Russian parliament's committee on information policy.

“Yandex is more than a company, it is an asset to Russian society.”

The $5.2 billion deal is believed to be well below Yandex's market value. According to an estimate, its value in 2021 was $30 billion.