Taxi-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. and its Russian firm Yandex LLC providing analogue services are planning to apply to the Russian antimonopoly agency FAS for the approval of their merger deal, according to Uber Communications Director Irina Guschina, TASS reported on Friday.
"The deal itself is subject to agreement with the regulating authorities, including FAS. We have announced that we had signed an agreement, stating that we will create a company. The next step is the negotiation of the deal, and we intend to begin this process literally in the coming days," said Guschina during an interview with a local TV channel Rossiya 24. The comment comes after FAS Chief Igor Artemyev noted that the deal can be potentially threatening as it can jeopardize competition in that market.
Uber and Yandex Taxi will be combined in the Russian partner's home country and five neighboring markets. On Thursday, the companies said they will invest $225 million and $100 million in the new entity, respectively, valuing it at $3.73 billion in total. Yandex, based in Moscow, will control 59.3% in the business covering Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and Georgia, leaving 36.1% to the giant United States–based startup and 4.1% to employees.
