EFE:
MOSCOW — Russia is seeking to restructure Russian tech giant Yandex, amid international isolation of the Russian economy and Western sanctions against several of its directors, including the company’s co-founder, Arkady Voloz.
The company’s reorganization will include a division of the company’s assets and a new leadership close to the Kremlin in the Russian structure of business in the person of the current head of the Audit Bureau and former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, according to RBC media. and The Bell.
According to RBC, Kudrin and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed on the transfer of this liberal politician and economist to Yandex, Russia’s largest technology and division of the company’s assets, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov could not confirm this meeting today.
The official Tass news agency said on Friday that “Kudrin may soon receive a job at Yandex” and that the decision has already been made and could be “formalized on December 30 or 14 next” when the Senate holds plenary sessions.
According to RBC, one of the options for splitting the company would be to separate Russian assets from international ones, so that the current owner Volozh, approved by the European Union (EU) for supporting Russia “materially or financially”, would remain with the international business in exchange for losing control over the technology.
Currently, the parent company of the tech giant founded in 1997 is registered in the Netherlands.
After the reorganization, Yandex will have another parent, which will be registered in Russia and in which Kudrin will make important decisions and should receive 2% of the capital immediately and another 3% later, according to The Bell.
According to The Bell, the business structures of Russian metallurgist Vladimir Potanin, owner of companies such as Interros and sanctioned by the UK, could also participate in the new legal entity.
In Yandex Netherlands, the business structures of Roman Abramovich and the Russian State Bank VTB are already included as minority shareholders, according to this broker.
Its main shareholder is Voloz, who has lived permanently in Israel for some time, RBC recalls, and who resigned in June as CEO, after being sanctioned by the European Union.
In exchange for losing control over Yandex, this businessman will receive the right to independently develop several of the company’s businesses abroad.
The Bell claims that for many years the founder of Yandex dreamed of turning the company into an international player and that some projects, such as self-driving cars, were initially aimed at Western markets.
Volozh was also going to develop Yandex cloud services abroad: it was about expanding to countries outside Europe and the United States, where there are no cloud technologies of their own.
After the start of the Russian military intervention, Voloz wanted to separate from Yandex that part of the business that, given the conditions of Russia’s isolation, could be developed separately from the company abroad.
The outlet claims it’s about drones, cloud services, and educational project Yandex.
RBC reports that the businessman will receive intellectual property rights for the further development of these companies abroad.
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