Page 26 - RusRPTMay21

Yandex shares soared after it announced that it was buying Russia’s only pure online bank Tinkoff for $5.5bn. However, the deal collapsed after Oleg Tinkov said the deal was actually a “merger.” The two sides could not reconcile their differences and the deal quickly collapsed.
Sber's investments into its non-banking ecosystem projects are expected to rise from RUB150bn ($2bn) at YE20 to RUB300-350bn ($4bn-$4.7bn) by YE23, or from c. 3% to c. 6-7% of total equity, according to Khasis.
A big part of creating the SberMegaMarket that is supposed to cater to all the needs and wants of the consumer will be linked with Sber’s existing grocery delivery business SberMarket in particular, as well as be integrated with SberLogistics.
In turn, SberMarket is expected to become the undisputed leader in the Russian grocery delivery market this year, in what is an increasingly competitive business and currently lead by X5 Retail Group. Almost all of Russia’s leading supermarket chains have ambitious plans to put their businesses online and new entrants into retail and e-groceries – the fastest growing section of Russia’s flourishing e-commerce sector – focusing on hard discounts make the sub-sector even more competitive.
Sber and leading online business Mail.ru have agreed on a “mutually acceptable” configuration for their O2O partnership, Khasis said, acknowledging though that Sber and Mail.ru continue to compete in some segments.
Sber has been trying to form alliances with most of Russia’s top online businesses, but the partnerships keep breaking down, reportedly because of Sber’s large ambitions and its insistence of becoming the dominant partner.
In the latest, the proposed tie up between Sber and Mail.ru ended in divorce after the two majors announced they would break up their $1.6bn O2O joint venture in foodtech and transportation.
It seems that Sber is adding a new business every week and one of its big advantages over other players in the market is its country-wide branch network that stretches down in every town in the country, which it can leverage as both sales and delivery points.
Khasis announced that in Sber’s latest initiative it will pilot the placement of physical pharmacies from its recently acquired e-pharmacy business Sber Eapteka in Sberbank branches across the country.
“While Sber plans to more than double its non-banking ecosystem investments, we think the fundamental ambitions behind these plans are unlikely to surprise the market. We therefore do not see their discussion as having a material impact on Sber's share price,” Sova Capital said in a note.
26 RUSSIA Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com