Russian search engine and ride-hailing company Yandex has announced that it will buy out Uber in some of the joint ventures the two organisations share, including its food and grocery delivery services, in a US$1bn (£725m) deal.
The agreement will see Yandex purchase Uber’s 33.5% stake in Yandex.Eats, Yandex.Lavka and Yandex.Delivery, giving Yandex 100% ownership in all three businesses, as well as Uber’s 18.2% interest in Yandex Self-Driving Group, giving Yandex 100% ownership in the business.
In addition, it will gain a further 4.5% interest in the newly restructured MLU, which will focus on mobility businesses, giving Yandex and its employees a total of approximately 71% ownership in the joint venture.
Yandex will also receive an extension of the current license for the exclusive right to use the Uber brand in Russia and certain other countries until August 2030.
“Since we started our partnership with Uber in 2018, we’ve been able to create and rapidly develop a number of successful businesses – all of them are highly synergetic to our e-commerce initiative and to the entire Yandex ecosystem,” said Tigran Khudaverdyan, deputy CEO, Yandex.
“The consolidation of these businesses puts us in a great position to further increase strategic management flexibility, while creating new substantial growth potential for our businesses and cross-platform consumer benefits over the years to come, allowing us to unlock new sources of value for our shareholders.”
