Melling, Voitishkin and Partners representing Yandex’s Russian group of companies in their acquisition by a consortium of investors from parent company Yandex N.V. (Netherlands)

Melling, Voitishkin and Partners is advising Yandex’s Russian group of companies on a range of issues related to the acquisition of Yandex’s Russian business from parent company Yandex N.V. (Netherlands) by a consortium of investors. The transaction involves the creation of a new Russian holding company (in the form of an international public joint stock company), obtaining the necessary approvals for all stages of the restructuring, drafting and approval of the Yandex group’s corporate governance documents after closing the transaction (including an incentive program), and issues concerning the subsequent activities of the Russian Yandex holding. According to public sources, the company is valued at 475 billion rubles, taking into account the mandatory 50% discount established by the Russian government for foreign investors leaving the country.

The corporate team was led by partner Dmitry Marchan and included senior associates Sergey Kapustin, Roman Ishmukhametov and Olga Komleva with the assistance of banking and finance law counsel Andrey Lebedev. Sergei Zhestkov led the preparation of a long-term incentive program. The work on obtaining approvals was supervised by Nadia Goreslavskaya, antitrust & competition partner.

“Selling the Yandex business is an incredibly complex project that we began working on long before the official announcement. Yandex was fortunate to have Melling, Voitishkin and Partners as legal support; the team quickly immersed itself in all aspects of the project and became a reliable advisor whose expertise we can trust, and a shoulder on which we can lean at any time. We are grateful to our colleagues for their dedication to the project and calm professionalism,” says Yulia Popelysheva, Yandex Head of Legal.

Dmitry Marchan comments: “We are proud to assist Yandex in creating a new corporate structure for the subsequent development and implementation of new projects.”