The firm connected with the leader of "New people" became interested in "Yandex"

Among the possible contenders for a stake in Yandex is a company associated with politician Alexei Nechaev, RBC learned. But the foreign directors of Yandex are not ready to support the deal with the sanctioned person, and she herself is questionable Aleksey Nechaev

If the discussed section of "Yandex" takes place, then the pool of investors interested in acquiring shares in the capital of the Russian business of the Internet company may include the founder of NK "LUKOIL" Vagit Alekperov, the owner of Kismet Capital Group Ivan Tavrin, as well as a structure associated with the deputy's family State Duma and head of the New People faction Alexei Nechaev, a source familiar with the negotiations told RBC.

The discussion of the possible participation of these businessmen and their structures in the transaction is confirmed by a source of RBC in the financial market and an investor familiar with consultations on the possible sale of the Russian business of Yandex.

According to one of the sources, the possibility of participation in this transaction of the non-state pension fund Gazfond is also being considered.

Yandex stated that they "do not comment on rumors."

Alexei Nechaev and the press service of the New People declined to comment. As a member of the State Duma, he is under sanctions, in particular, from the EU and the US . Earlier, Nechaev transferred his main asset, the cosmetics company Faberlic, to trust management of brand director Natalia Binat. In 2021, he became the richest among the heads of the State Duma factions, earning about 2.4 billion rubles. Nechaev has experience investing in online media: in 2021, his investment fund Eskadra-Capital bought 100% of Sports.ru.

RBC sent a request to Alekperov through the press service of LUKOIL, to Kismet and Gazfond. An RBC source close to Tavrin said that “the entire investor market has been communicating and consulting on Yandex for the past six months in one way or another, but Kismet has not conducted any negotiations.”

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Now the Russian "Yandex" is 100% owned by the Dutch Yandex NV, whose capital, in turn, is divided between the family trust of the founder of "Yandex" Arkady Volozh (8.5%) and the company's employees (3.2%), the remaining 87.6 % are in free circulation. Among the owners of minority stakes are Western investment funds. At the same time, the main owners of voting shares are the Volozh family trust (45.1%) and members of the board of directors, managers and employees of the company (6.6%). Last summer, Volozh's trust gave voting rights to independent members of the company's board of directors: it votes in shares only on their recommendations. Also, since 2019, there is a Public Interest Fund,

The management and consultants of Yandex NV have been discussing various options for reorganizing the company for more than a year. It is assumed that the Dutch Yandex NV, which Arkady Volozh's family trust plans to retain control over, will retain licenses for the development of four projects abroad: drones, cloud technologies, an educational project and a data markup project.

Russian "Yandex", in turn, can attract new investors by selling 50% plus one share . In early March of this year, RBC sources reported that Yandex managers formed a preliminary list of those with whom they were ready to start negotiations on entering the company's capital, based on an estimate of 50% plus one share at about $ 3.8 billion. Initially, this the list included 20 businessmen. In addition to Alekperov, the list, for example, included billionaire Alexei Mordashov, president of the Interros holding and MMC Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin, senator, former main owner of the Polyus gold mining company Suleiman Kerimov, chairman of the board of directors of NLMK Vladimir Lisin, and others.

In mid-May, Bloomberg , citing its own sources, wrote that Yandex NV received an offer from Potanin and Alekperov to buy at least 51% of Yandex. Following the publication, The Bell (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on a deal to sell the Russian part of Yandex to Potanin, Mordashov, Alekperov and VTB Bank, and the head of the latter, Andrei Kostin, confirmed his interest in buying a stake in the "large » a consortium of investors.

But in mid-June, Kostin said that he considered it unfair to discuss the deal at a market price. "Why should American investors get everything when Russian investors [in the West] can't get anything?" he noted. At the same time, Andrei Kostin proposed to “torpedo” the deal and transfer Yandex under management, by analogy with the Russian business of the Finnish energy concern Fortum.

The variant of the transaction proposed by Andrey Kostin was not commented on in Yandex. RBC's source says that the transfer of the company under external management with the subsequent sale to interested investors is "absolutely not ruled out."

Earlier, Yandex stated that they received offers from potential investors to purchase economic shares in the company and they were considered by the board of directors, but the final decision on the deal has not yet been made. At the same time, the company emphasized that economic investors would not have control over Yandex and that the company would check applications from buyers for compliance with sanctions restrictions. A source close to the company says that members of the Yandex board of directors, representing the interests of Western minority shareholders, are not ready to vote for a deal with investors from the sanctions lists.