Yandex Names Bankers for I.P.O.

Russian search engine company Yandex has picked Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley to run a potential $1 billion initial public offering later this year, Reuters reported. Private equity firm Baring Vostock owns roughly 40% of the company, which aims to list on the Nasdaq market, Reuters said.

(Reuters) – Russian internet company Yandex has picked Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley to run a possible $1 billion share float on New York’s Nasdaq market later this year, a source close to the placement told Reuters.

Yandex runs Russia’s busiest search engine with 64 percent of the local market and 56 million users a month, according to its website.

A spokeswoman for Yandex declined to comment.

The company, 40 percent owned by private equity firm Baring Vostock, was forced to put off flotation plans during the financial crisis but is now hoping to get it away in the wake of last year’s successful listing by fellow Russian online group Mail.ru .

As well as Baring Vostock, the company is also 30 percent owned by management led by CEO and founder Arkady Volozh.

Mail.ru, which owns a 2.38 percent stake in Facebook, raised over 1 billion pounds ($1.62 billion) in London last November and enjoyed an opening day share price surge of more than 30 percent.

In contrast three other Russian IPOs failed to get away earlier this month.

Coking coal producer KOKS, steel pipe maker ChelPipe and miner Nord Gold all postponed IPO attempts after failing to attract demand for their chosen valuations, while the secondary share offering of state-controlled VTB monopolised market attention in Russian stocks. [ID:nLDE71908R] ($1=.6165 pounds) (Reporting by Olga Popova, Writing by John Bowker; Editing by Greg Mahlich)