5 Russia-affiliated web firms are to be formally delisted from U.S. inventory exchanges, a 12 months after buying and selling was halted within the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Probably the most distinguished of the quintet is Yandex, a 25-year-old tech firm typically known as “The Google of Russia,” owing to its merchandise spanning search, e-commerce, promoting, maps, transportation, and extra.
Yandex first went public on Nasdaq in Could, 2011, by way of a dad or mum holding firm known as Yandex N.V. that’s registered within the Netherlands. This was adopted by a secondary itemizing on the Moscow Trade three years later. Yandex had been performing nicely as a public firm, reaching an all-time excessive in November, 2021, with a market cap of $31 billion. Within the months that adopted, Yandex’s shares went into freefall as Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine, main Nasdaq to place a temporary halt on trading in February, 2022.
Divesting
Many Western companies suspended operations in Russia in early 2022 as a consequence of sanctions, whereas Yandex CEO and founder Arkady Volozh left the company last June after he was included on a listing of sanctions issued by the European Union.
To guard its remaining pursuits, Yandex has been divesting a few of its properties, together with offloading its news service to a rival with shut ties to the Russian State. And again in November, Yandex announced plans for a company restructuring that might distance itself from its Russian roots by additional divestments, whereas leveraging its current worldwide presence in areas corresponding to self-driving automobiles, and cloud computing.
Yandex additionally famous that it will doubtless re-brand its Dutch holding firm, although this has but to come back to fruition.
Nevertheless, Yandex wasn’t the one Russian firm impacted by geopolitical turmoil. Nasdaq final 12 months halted buying and selling in online recruitment platform HeadHunter; e-commerce participant Ozon, which has been known as the Amazon of Russia; and Russian fintech Qiwi, which claims an official headquarters in Cyprus. The New York Inventory Trade (NYSE), in the meantime, halted buying and selling in Russian actual property database firm Cian, which is also formally based mostly in Cyprus.
Yesterday, Nasdaq alerted its 4 firms that delisting proceedings had been underway, with Yandex, HeadHunter, Ozon, and Qiwi‘s delisting-day scheduled for March 24. The NYSE additionally notified Cian, although a date wasn’t supplied.
Nasdaq’s rules round delisting procedures state that it could possibly accomplish that “…based mostly on any occasion, situation, or circumstance that exists or happens that makes preliminary or continued itemizing of the securities inadvisable or unwarranted in its opinion, though the securities meet all enumerated standards for preliminary or continued itemizing on Nasdaq.”
Nevertheless, there may be additionally an official appeals course of in place. Corporations going through a delisting course of can request a listening to from an advisory committee that’s appointed by Nasdaq’s board of administrators, and firms wishing to take action have seven days after receiving their delisting discover.
On the time of writing, Yandex has said that it will appeal the decision, whereas Ozon has confirmed that it’s contemplating submitting an attraction. TechCrunch has reached out to the opposite three firms to ask in the event that they intend to attraction, and can replace right here when, or if, we hear again.
Leave a Reply