Analysts: Yandex will be transferred to the state, Gref will not help

The transition of Yandex into the hands of a state shareholder is “inevitable” after a bill on a 20% ceiling on foreign ownership of information resources significant for Russia, Forbes reports , citing a thematic note by Renaissance Capital analysts.

Forecasts. Analysts suggest that this time even the president of Sberbank German Gref, who will no longer participate in negotiations on the side of the company, will not help Yandex. The most likely result of the negotiations is the appearance of a state-owned company as a shareholder of Yandex, be it Sberbank, VTB, RDIF or Gazprom. At the same time, Yandex may remain a profit-oriented and innovative company.

Quote: "No one wants the bill to pass, but it is a tool that will force the company to agree to change." The bill should not affect Yandex's competitor, Mail.Ru Group, analysts write.

What a bill. On July 26, United Russia deputy Anton Gorelkin introduced a bill to limit 20% of foreign ownership of information resources that are significant for Russia's information infrastructure. Gorelkin then stressed that the amendments would affect Yandex, describing an apocalyptic picture of the collapse of Russian business if its services were stopped.

Attack on Yandex. The company fits the new law in all respects. Yandex NV is incorporated in the Netherlands, 85% of its authorized capital is traded on the American NASDAQ exchange, and 49.2% of the votes belong to the founder Arkady Volozh, who at least at the beginning of 2018 was a citizen of Malta.

• The fact that the bill was introduced by a little-known deputy - the former press secretary of the Kemerovo governor Aman Tuleyev Anton Gorelkin , should not be misleading. Three sources told The Bell at once that the project was developed by the Presidential Administration.
• Yandex is the main goal of the bill: it was specially introduced on one of the last days of the State Duma, so that the authorities would have time to negotiate with Yandex about any restructuring that would increase state control over the company, a source in the Internet market tells The Bell who knows the history of the preparation of the bill.

Graf won't help anymore. Last fall, The Bell learned that Sberbank was negotiating the purchase of a large stake in Yandex - up to 30% of the capital. It was assumed that in this way the state bank offers to protect the company from possible problems with competitors and with the state. This was the starting point of the conflict between the companies, since the founder of Yandex, Arkady Volozh, abruptly abandoned the idea, wrote FT.

• After the failure of negotiations and the emergence of information, relations also deteriorated personally between the head of Sberbank German Gref and Arkady Volozh, acquaintances of both told The Bell.
• According to the FT, since last fall, Gref has never taken part in meetings of the Yandex board of directors and has not voted on its decisions.
• The conflict is so serious that the participants thought about changing the structure of the joint venture in favor of Yandex, an FT source claims. According to The Bell, negotiations are underway for a full-fledged divorce, the parties presented each other with different options.

And what about Yandex? The company almost immediately stated that the bill could not be passed in this form, since it would hit end users. Even before negotiations began, the bill had already cost the company dearly. Quotes of "Yandex" began to fall on Friday, and on Monday at 12.00 Moscow time they fell by another 3.75% on the Moscow Exchange and by 3.6% on the NASDAQ. The total maximum drop over these days reached nearly 12%, which is more than $1 billion in capitalization.