Shareholders of Russian search engine Yandex to sell shares worth $600M

Russia's most popular search engine Yandex NV said on Tuesday its existing shareholders, including co-founder and CEO Arkady Volozh, will sell about 7.4 per cent of the company's shares worth roughly $600 million.

Yandex said a total of 24.25 million shares would be offered on Tuesday by BC&B Holdings B.V., which holds shares on behalf of Baring Vostok funds, as well as by Volozh's affiliate, Belka Holdings Ltd, chief technology officer Ilya Segalovich and Emerald Trust.

It did not disclose the price of the offering. Based on Monday's closing price of $25.03 a share, the stake is worth around $607 million, according to Reuters calculations.

Yandex will not receive any proceeds from the offering, it said in a statement.

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are acting as joint bookrunners for the offering and have been granted an option for 30 days to purchase up to an additional 2.4 million shares.

In a separate statement, Yandex also said its board approved a share buyback program in respect of up to 12 million shares - or 3.7 per cent of the total - to run between the completion of the secondary share sale and at least November 14, unless extended.

Yandex raised $1.4 billion in an oversubscribed initial public offering in New York in May 2011 that was priced at $25 per share.