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Internet Search Engine Bought by Upstart Holding
Ignoring recent global
losses in high-tech stocks, newly-born RuNet Holdings Ltd.
grabbed a third of the RuNet market by acquiring yandex.ru and
the Yandex trademark on Thursday.
Ru-Net hoping Ozon.ru becomes Russia’s Amazon
Ru-Net Holdings Ltd., the
newly founded, partly Western consortium, has made its first
move by acquiring a 51 percent stake in St. Petersburg online
bookseller Ozon for $1.8 million.
Apr 05, 2000
Russian Phone Firm Rostelecom Likely to Rise More on Internet Demand
OAO Rostelecom shares have more
than doubled in three months and are set to rise further on
optimism growing demand for Internet services will boost the
Russian long-distance phone service's profits, investors said.
Baring-UFG $20 mln fund targets Russian Internet
Baring
Vostok
Capital
Partners
and
Russia's
United
Financial
Group
have
opened
a
$20.5
million
Russian
Internet
direct
equity
fund
and
bought
a
$3
million
stake
in
an
on-line
book seller,
the
firms
said
on Friday.
Russian Golden Telecom sees
growth
Russian telecommunications
and Internet firm Golden Telecom will see steady revenues in
core telephony groups and rising sales in the integrated voice
and data arena, the company's president said.
Feb 25, 2000
Bradley Cook got new job
Bradley Cook, former Editor-in-Chief of The
St. Petersburg Times
in St. Petersburg, Russia, has joined the editorial team of NewsMax.com as
editor of NewsMaxUK.com.
Feb 24, 2000
Telia is breaking on
Russian market
By way of a share acquisition Telia has entered as
industrial partner in First National Holding/Telecominvest - one of the three
most important telecom and IT-groups in Russia. The transaction is valued at 700
million SEK.
Feb 23, 2000
Golden Telecom Introduces
Enhanced Internet Services
The new tariff plans provide
a complete package of Internet services for the dial-up access market. Monthly
pre-paid packages, including 20 or 50 hours online
Feb 22, 2000
No Windows 2000, No Cryptography
The Federal Agency of Government Communication and Information (FAPSI) is not
going to prevent the sales of Windows 2000 in Russia.
Feb 21, 2000
Comcor,
Andersen Group found joint venture
Moscow Telecommunications Corporation (Comcor)
and Andersen Group have announced that they have created a joined venture called
Comcor-TV.
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Ru-Net hoping Ozon.ru becomes Russia’s Amazon
By VLADIMIR KITOV / The Russia Journal
ST. PETERSBURG – Ru-Net Holdings Ltd., the newly founded, partly
Western consortium, has made its first move by acquiring a 51 percent
stake in St. Petersburg online bookseller Ozon for $1.8 million.
The deal materialized three months after the $20.5 million strong
Ru-Net Holdings was founded by a dozen investors, including an
investment arm of the ING Barings – Baring Vostok Capital Partners (BVCP)
– and the powerful Moscow brokerage United Financial Group.
"The commitment for Ozon is our first try and we are very much
looking forward to turn it into an even bigger success," said
Yelena Ivashentseva, the investment manager with the BVCP's Moscow
office.
Founded in April, 1998, by three software designers, Ozon is
considered the biggest among several Russian online sellers of books,
CDs, videos and computer games. It says it has modeled itself after
Amazon.com, the U.S. online bookseller that has a market value of more
than $22 billion.
Recent data show that about 150 orders are finalized on an average
day at Ozon.ru. More than 50 percent of the daily 10,000 hits and
overall orders come from Russians living in the United States and Israel,
officials said. The company said that Ozon has revenue of about $70,000
a month and operates from the basement of an apartment block in St.
Petersburg.
Ozon.ru is a convenient shop for either credit card holders or Moscow
and St. Petersburg residents, where customers have an option to pay on
delivery. For others, an order will be shipped to a client only after
Ozon gets the money transferred either by post or by a transfer made by
the state-owned Sberbank. In both cases, transactions between St.
Petersburg and Moscow might take up to 10-12 working days.
BVCP's Ivashentseva said that, although small now, Ozon has room to
grow.
"We believe that the analogy of the St. Petersburg venture's
name with that of the world's biggest online seller, Amazon.com, is not
a detail to miss."
Ivashentseva said that a public offering of Ozon's shares would be
made as soon as the venture itself and the markets around it are ready
for such a proposal.
An independent enterprise, Ozon Ltd. is known to be the brainchild of
prominent St. Petersburg software and telecommunication company Recksoft.
In February 1999, the e-bookshop was reorganized as a separate entity,
but the Recksoft Director Alexander Yegorov has remained in charge of
Ozon's strategic affairs.
In a recent interview, he said that he began to look for investors as
early as 1997, when Ozon didn't even have a registered Internet address.
The search was strongly empowered when investment company Trigon Capital
was hired to step in as Ozon's financial consultant.
"Business connections of our consultants have played a major
role in that we have finally found big investors," said Yegorov.
However, BVCP's Ivashentseva said that Ru-Net Holdings is already
working on possible acquisitions of several other well-established
commercial and information sites on the Russian Internet.
Now is an appropriate time for any serious investors to join the
rapidly growing and strongly underestimated market of Russian e-commerce,
according to a new technology markets analyst from Menatep-St.
Petersburg Bank "You pay cents now to receive millions [of dollars]
in the course of five-10 years," said the expert.
