Page 152 - RusRPTJul23

9.2.7 TMT corporate news
● Yandex
The deal to sell Yandex to a consortium of Russian investors could fall apart. The list of potential buyers has already been approved by Vladimir Putin, but now the board of directors is afraid of sanctions risks and does not want to approve a deal with businessmen under sanctions. Vagit Alekperov remains the only buyer who is satisfied with the advice. The fact that the deal to sell Yandex to a consortium of Russian investors could fall apart was told by The Bell and Meduza by four interlocutors familiar with the negotiations. The main reason is the sanctions under which most applicants for the purchase of shares in Yandex are under, they say.
● Wildberries
Ozon's goods turnover in 2023 may grow by 70% to $17.17bn. At the end of 2022, the online retailer's sales of goods grew by 86% compared to 2021 and reached $10.2bn and the losses increased by 2% to $711.39mn. Wildberries says Jan–Mar GMV doubles to RUB577bn.
On the night of May 11, several hundred sellers working with the largest Russian marketplace had their accounts frozen. In Wildberries, this decision was explained by the fraudulent “gray promotion” scheme disclosed by the company. Allegedly, sellers through the Telegram bot used advertising services on the platform for free. The company estimated its damage at 650 million rubles - and automatically accrued almost 2.5 billion rubles in fines to entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs did not like this turn of events: on the afternoon of May 11, dozens of sellers went to the Moscow office of Wildberries. There they were met with police and taken to the company's Moscow headquarters. “In a human way, they could at least explain. Where did the money go? It is not known, ”one of the entrepreneurs complained to the Msk1 portal. Some of the sellers that morning with an account of minus 90 million rubles, some - twice as much.
After seven hours of proceedings, the company announced that the marketplace and the sellers had reached an agreement - Wildberries suspended the accrual of fines for advertising during the police investigation. At the same time, the company insisted that most of the sellers confirmed the use of "gray" promotion schemes. And on May 23, the situation repeated itself: about 80 sellers again came to the Wildberries office, who decided to protest against the fact that two weeks after the start of the proceedings, the marketplace had not unblocked their accounts and personal accounts.
152 RUSSIA Country Report July 2023 www.intellinews.com