Controversial Metalloinvest founder and Arsenal stakeholder Alisher Usmanov could drop a billion dollars into Russian search site Yandex.

There’s a lot that could be said about Usmanov, especially by British writer and former Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray. For now, we’ll just say the billionaire has his eyes on the search market, as he seeks a stake in Yandex.

The Quintura blog noted his interest:

The founder of Metalloinvest holding and owner of Kommersant publishing house, Alisher Usmanov is becoming a major investor in Russian internet, reported business daily Vedomosti. According to newspaper, he is negotiating an acquisition of a 10%-20% stake in Russia’s leading search engine Yandex from the founding managers of the company as well as via new shares at upcoming IPO on NASDAQ. Based on the company’s expected valuation of up to up to $5 billion, the stake could be worth some $1 billion. The investment banks Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital are managing the Yandex’s IPO.

Usmanov also holds stakes in LiveJournal’s owner SUP and in big email provider Mail.ru parent Digital Sky Technologies. Yandex competes with Google for the search market; if Murray’s assessment of Usmanov is accurate, the competition could get rough.

Posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 11:45 am. Permalink