Page 24 - bne IntelliNews weekly newspaper – Russians lose showdown at EBRD AM

Weekly Lists
May 12, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 24
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Yandex to buy back 20%
of its equity
Turkey tells firewalled Wikipedia to remove content, open office and pay taxes
Russian online giant Yandex plans to repurchase its Class A shares amounting to 20% of its equity, Bloomberg reported on May 10. The buyback is subject to approval by shareholders at the compa- ny’s AGM, scheduled for May25.
Yandex previously announced that it would consider distributing cash as the company had some $1.1bn of cash and short-term investments on its balance sheet as of 31 March.
“We believe the news could be taken positively by the market sen- timent-wise,” Alfa Bank said in a research note. “The price consid- eration is important and will dictate the actual buyback amount.”
Wikipedia, unavailable to Turkish users since being blocked by a court on April 29, has been told by a minister that it should open a representative office in Turkey and start paying taxes, Hurriyet Daily News reported on May 11.
The online encyclopaedia was firewalled after its site administra- tor refused to remove two English-language pages which allegedly claim that Turkey supports jihadists in Syria. A May 5 court appeal against the blocking of the site was rejected.
“Turkey cannot be shown as a supporter of a terror organisation. They should remove the false information, and then we will al-
low the publication. They should also open an office and pay tax,” Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan reportedly said in remarks on the controversy.
Warsaw-listed telecom and media group Cyfrowy Polsat posted net profit of PLN279.4mn (€66.1mn) in the first quarter of 2017, the company announced on May 11.
The result shows the company’s net profit grew just over 59% y/y, although it fell 20% in quarterly terms. The result beat consensus expectations by 6%, driven by equipment sales and growing sales of pay TV services, mobile internet, data transmission and sales of TV ads.
Poland’s Cyfrowy Polsat posts 59% y/y profit growth in Q1