Yandex Found $100 Million for Shareholders / Maxim Stulov / Vedomosti

Yandex plans to conduct a share buyback for up to $100 million. The company's board of directors made this decision, the search engine reported. The company intends to buy back its own Class A shares on the open market. The maximum period for the share buyback is one year, but the time and specific amounts of the transactions have not been precisely determined: everything will depend on the market situation and a number of other possible factors.

Yandex's authorized capital consists of 327 million shares, of which 289.8 million are class A and 37.9 million are class B. Only the former are traded on the stock exchange. As of 18:00 Moscow time on June 12, their quotes on NASDAQ were $36. If Yandex exercises the option in full at this price, the company could buy back about 2.7 million shares, or less than 1%.

This is not the first time that Yandex has bought back shares from the market: in March 2013, the board of directors approved the purchase of 12 million Class A shares. A company representative told Vedomosti at the time that Yandex bought back 6 times less than planned – 2 million shares for $40 million. In December 2013, the board of directors approved an increase in the option by another 3 million shares to 15 million, and in June the share buyback program was completed. A month later, the company announced an additional buyback of 3 million shares.

Yandex spent $268.7 million on buying back its shares

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But these options were not fully exercised, as follows from Yandex's financial statements. In 2013, the company bought more than 8.6 million shares from the market for more than $268 million. In 2014, the company acquired another 7.3 million shares for $228 million.

In 2013, the number of Yandex shares in free circulation was 62.3%, now it is 84.7%. Yandex shareholders: the founder of the company and CEO of the Yandex group of companies Arkady Volozh (10.2%), the company's management - 4.1%, other shareholders - 0.8%.

The fact that the company has announced a buyout does not mean that transactions will be made for the entire announced amount, Sova Capital analyst Alexander Vengranovich told Vedomosti. The company will report on actual transactions quarterly in its reports.

The buyback should support the stock price, which, like many other companies operating on the Russian market, fell after the sanctions were imposed, says Vengranovich. He calls the company's decision a good signal for investors: "Now is the time for the company to support the value of its shares, given the high liquidity of its securities, this is a common practice for companies if they do not have a large debt, and also if they do not plan to make large acquisitions in the near future and large investments in the development of their own business."

Yandex to spend up to $100 million on share buybacks