Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi speaks at a product launch event in San Francisco, California on September 26, 2019.
Philip Pacheco | AFP via Getty Images
Uber sells shares of several joint ventures it has with Yandex of Russia for $ 1 billion in cash.
The deal, announced Tuesday, will allow Moscow-based Yandex to buy Uber and gain full control of Yandex.Eats food delivery service, Yandex.Lavka grocery delivery service and logistics firm Yandex.Delivery.
Currently, Uber has a 33.5% stake in each of the companies.
Yandex, whose search engine is more used in Russia than Google, said it also takes full control of the autonomous driving group Yandex, of which Uber currently owns 18.2%.
“Since we started our partnership with Uber in 2018, we have been able to quickly create and develop a number of successful companies; they are all highly synergistic with our e-commerce initiative and the entire Yandex ecosystem,” he said. said Tigran Khudaverdyan, deputy general manager of Yandex, in a statement.
“The consolidation of these businesses puts us in a good position to further increase the flexibility of strategic management, while creating new potential for substantial growth for our companies and cross-platform benefits for the consumer in the coming years, which it allows us to unlock new sources of value for our shareholders. “
The deal will also allow Yandex to take an additional 4.5% in MLU, which is the joint venture it created when it merged its taxi business with Uber in 2018.
Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
The coronavirus pandemic has allowed delivery companies to thrive, as blockades have prevented people from entering physical stores.
Greg Abovsky, CEO and CEO of Yandex Group, told CNBC last year that Yandex.Lavka was six times larger in May 2020 than in January 2020.
Yandex, which had nearly $ 3 billion in hand at the end of the second quarter, is also expanding its online buying and streaming business.
It is one of several Russian companies that aims to evolve into a super Chinese-style app that offers users a wealth of products and services.
Yandex bought a small bank earlier this year as it appears to be expanding into financial services, as are Russia’s two largest e-commerce companies: Ozon and Wildberries.