The state-controlled Sverbank may acquire a "golden share" in Yandex, the largest search system in the Russian Internet, two sources in the Russian government-controlled banks told Vedomosti.
However, a final decision has yet to be made, they stressed. A representative of Sberbank has declined to comment. But a source close to the bank confirmed that the deal is being considered. The Government wants to be sure that Yandex will not sell its share to a foreign company, one of Vedomosti's sources said.
The plan of transferring a Yandex "golden share" to the government-controlled bank was discussed with the Deputy Chief of the Presidential Executive Office, Vladislav Surkov, a source close to the Presidential Executive Office confirmed. Our correspondent who called Mr Surkov's office was directed to his advisor, Konstantin Kostin, who refused to comment.
Along with the "golden share" the state will get a right to veto any deals, says a Vedomosti source close to the Yandex shareholder. Yandex head office, Yandex NV, is registered in Holland, so Sberbank will obtain one Dutch share, the Yandex manager explained. Such a share is often given to the state, says Ilya Rachkov, a partner with Noerr Stiefenhofer Lutz. Its owner has the right to veto certain decisions listed in the shareholder agreement.
Yandex director-general Arkady Volozh has declined to comment.
Yandex is the country's largest search system, which processes 57.3% of requests (according to Liveinternet). Google's share is 22.8%, that of mail.ru, 9.9% and Rambler 4.9%. Yandex audience in February was 18.4 million (TNS data). At present about 50% of Yandex shares are owned by foreign funds, and the rest by the company managers (20%) and founders Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich (30%). Last year the Government became aware of the role of the Internet and officials expressed fears that major Internet companies could come under foreign control. Yandex plans to conduct an IPO further fanned these fears.
Alisher Usmanov rushed to the rescue, becoming the most active investor in the Russian Internet overnight acquiring about 30% of Digital Sky Technologies, which owns major stakes in the postal service Mail.ru, popular social networks Odnoklassniki, V kontakte, etc. Last summer Mr Usmanov agreed to buy 10% of Yandex, but the deal was never struck. The search system dropped its plans to conduct an IPO. The attempt by American Google to buy the Russian context advertising system Runner from Rambler met with obstruction from Government officials. The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service withheld a permit under a formal pretext and the Google backtracked. A source close to Rambler said Mr Putin is opposed to the deal.
By Irina Kudinova, Anastasia Reznik