Yandex NV (YNDX), Russia’s largest web
search engine, agreed to buy car information and advertising
site Auto.ru for about $175 million to expand into the
classifieds business.
Yandex will complete the acquisition of Auto.ru in the
third quarter, the Amsterdam-based company said today. Auto.ru
features 400,000 classifieds for new and used cars and also auto
parts, according to a regulatory statement.
Yandex has twice the market share of Google Inc. (GOOG) in Russia
and is expanding beyond Internet searches. The company bought
the Multiship online-delivery aggregator in January after
spending $80 million in October to acquire KinoPoisk, a Russian
version of the IMDb movie database.
The company’s shares fell as much as 2.2 percent in U.S.
trading today and were 0.8 percent down at $33.47 a share at
9:44 a.m. New York time. While the deal size is significant, it
won’t make a great contribution to Yandex’s financials in the
short term, Renaissance Capital said today in a note.
“Auto.ru is the leading vehicle classifieds website in
Moscow and is in the top 3 across Russia,” Yandex said.
Avito.ru, backed by Naspers Ltd (NPN), claims to be Russia’s largest
online classifieds site.
VTB Capital was Yandex’s financial adviser for the
purchase, according to the statement.
BloomBerg
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