Breaking: Yandex reached preliminary agreement to buy Tinkoff bank for $5.5bn deal in mega-merger

Yandex - “Russia’s Google” - has long been one of Russia’s most hotly tipped and innovative tech firms & Tinkoff is arguably its most cutting-edge financial upstart. Both have huge ambitions and are expanding wildly across sectors and industries

Huge question is role of government in the potential tie-up. Yandex was put through the ringer in 2019 with draft laws to restrict foreign ownership and was eventually corralled into setting up a Kremlin-controlled “public interest foundation” with sweeping oversight powers

More on Tinkoff and their aggressive ambitions in Russia’s financial sector in my profile of them from last year @MoscowTimes https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/10/28/russias-tinkoff-moscow-exchange-share-trading-a67934

On Yandex, more on how their awkward position as Russia’s top technology company worries the Kremlin, this @Stanovaya piece on their new governance model is a good read https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/27/yandex-safe-kremlin-compromise-fragile-a68323

Possible deal has pleased the market. Tinkoff shares jumped 7.5% to record high on the news, while Yandex is up 4%