Sign in / up

back to article Yandex sells off Russian ops, remaining Euro-biz now Putin itself about as Nebius Group

Yandex's Dutch entity has been untangled from its Russian operations in a $5.4 billion deal, leaving a new entity named Nebius Group without ties to Moscow and planning to pursue AI opportunties outside of Vladimir Putin's domain. The Born-in-Russia Google analog emerged in 1997 amid the dotcom boom, and by 2023 racked up [PDF …

COMMENTS

Post your comment
House rules Send corrections
Add to 'My topics' unstar *
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very smart moves compared to Kaspersky's complete tone-deafness in the geopolitical-economic landscape. The two orgs might be a good playbook for existing Chinese businesses to keep their eggs in two baskets as well, especially after the TikTok ban. Globalism was a bad idea for everyone, but especially for corporations, as it's advantageous for a multinational corporation to split itself up into territorial compartments, otherwise you get messes not only like this, but even Microsoft has had issues with various governments and how data is handled between them. You just can't expect to effortlessly do business when the egos of various despots can potentially bring your entire empire down.

    7 4 Reply
    1. DS999 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      If Trump is elected and becomes "president for life"

      Many US multinationals will face the same choices, as even if EU countries themselves don't try to distance themselves from the US for fear of reprisal a lot of EU citizenry and others around the world will.

      4 1 Reply
      1. Roopee Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: If Trump is elected and becomes "president for life"

        I'm guessing that "president for life" won't be as long as people fear...

        1 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If Trump is elected and becomes "president for life"

          We can hope.

          1 0 Reply
        2. DS999 Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: If Trump is elected and becomes "president for life"

          As bad as a Trump dictatorship would be, when he dies things would get worse. Regardless of if he's named a successor, there would be a fight over it and that would quickly get really really bad.

          0 0 Reply
          1. steviebuk Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: If Trump is elected and becomes "president for life"

            No doubt he make Don Junior his successor.

            If he gets in, America is done. Its why the likes of China and Russia want him in power. He is their useful idiot.

            0 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eets All Vine Now

    Now zat zee vinancial maneuvers are complete, vee alzo have streeped out all ze code zat vas zendink customer invormation to Veerless Leader Putin.

    Eets all vine, now. Very zafe, very sekure. Ve promise.

    --Борис Бадинов.

    3 10 Reply
    1. MyffyW Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Listen very carefully, I will say this only one...

      The 1980s called and they would like their foreign stereotypes back

      9 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Listen very carefully, I will say this only one...

        Apparently you never have seen the 1960s cartoon, "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show". Don't watch it if you don't understand sarcasm and parody.

        1 1 Reply
  3. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    How can the non Russia part of Yandex possibly be worth almost $3B ? They have basically zero users outside Russia or ex Soviet republics.

    6 2 Reply
    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      I have no idea. But then, the apparent "value" of western businesses that have no sign of profits also astonishes my logic as well.

      20 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Twitter for example...

        12 1 Reply
        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Reply Icon

          Twitter had a lot of wealthy (and in some cases very influential) users. It was even making small profits. And yet there was very limited advertising on display in comparison to either Google or Facebook. So there was definitely money in buying it and trying to play the targetted advertising game - with extra emphasis on trying to use all those journalists and celebs to help (hopefully unwittingly so you don't have to pay them for it). Admittedly $44 billion was insane. But it was definitely worth a decent number of billions.

          3 3 Reply
    2. mark l 2 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      I often use Yandex reverse image search to find the source of an image online, and on many occasions it will find results when Google equivalent has none or is more interested to show me 'relevant' ads related to the image.

      7 1 Reply
    3. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      All I know of Yandex is that they have competent people handling abuse complaints and they seem to know enough about what they're doing to survive longer than most online services. More of that in the world, please.

      0 0 Reply
  4. Bebu
    Windows

    Novichok cocktail with a Polonium chaser...

    I imagine Arkady Volozh is a very careful chappy these days as the current nutjob esconced in the Kremlin doesn't have a great reputation in dealing with his critics. Not that any of his predecessors distinguished themselves in this and I daresay unlikely any of his successors shall either.

    13 2 Reply
    1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Novichok cocktail with a Polonium chaser...

      Putin is evil and a total selfish sack of shite... but he is not a nutjob. He knows exactly what he is doing he just doesnt care.

      8 3 Reply
      1. BartyFartsLast Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Novichok cocktail with a Polonium chaser...

        Psychopaths are fully aware but still nutjobs

        4 1 Reply
        1. CowHorseFrog Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Novichok cocktail with a Polonium chaser...

          You are doing a disservice to the nutjobs of this world, they are many things but they are not able to *RUN* a country and survive all the other killing psycopaths in the russian kremlin is not a nutjob

          0 1 Reply
  5. Irongut Silver badge

    > The agreement for the sale of Yandex's Russian business to a Russian consortium was inked on February 4, 2024.

    So in 2024 this company is still making money from Russia.

    If they had really wanted to distance themselves from Mother Russia they could have just shut down their Russian operations rather than selling them.

    Their hands are hardly spotless.

    6 2 Reply
  6. steviebuk Silver badge

    reverse image search

    Good move. The only thinf I knew about Yandex is its reverse image search. Miles better than Google and actually gives results not just adverts.

    0 0 Reply

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

Forgotten password ?

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like