VTB head says Russia should take Yandex assets under management

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Andrei Kostin, CEO of state-owned Russian lender VTB, on Friday said that Moscow should take the Russian assets of internet company Yandex under management, as it did with two European-owned assets in April.

Yandex's Dutch-registered holding company, Yandex NV, is making progress on a corporate restructuring plan that should see it divest ownership and control of core, Russia-based businesses. Headquartered in Russia, Yandex's Nasdaq listing is subject to the deal being concluded by the end of 2023.

Yandex has a secondary listing in Moscow. Those shares were 2.2% lower as of 0819 GMT.

Sources told Reuters last month that shareholders in Yandex's holding company, many of whom are Western investment funds, could be in line to make $7 billion from a full divestment of its Russian businesses.

Kostin last week told Reuters that VTB could pull out of the running to acquire a stake in Yandex, due to the high price.

The $7 billion price tag, which Kostin confirmed, accounts for a Kremlin requirement that foreign companies leaving Russia sell their assets at a 50% discount.

"We are talking about a market deal to American investors for the fact that everything was taken away from us," Interfax quoted Kostin as saying.

Yandex declined to comment. It has previously said that the offers it has received are for the acquisition of an economic interest in the businesses. Control would remain in management's hands.

A source close to Yandex said there had been no discussions with the company over such a step.

Kostin in April spoke out in favour of taking foreign assets under management days before the Kremlin seized temporary control of Russian assets belonging to two European state-owned utilities, Finland's Fortum and Germany's Uniper.

"We should follow the Fortum scheme, take it under management and return it to them once sanctions come to an end," Kostin said on Friday. "That is my position as of today."

Executives have said gaining government commission approval is a lengthy and difficult process, especially as Russia keeps changing the rules for foreign businesses leaving the country over the conflict in Ukraine.

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya and Darya Korsunskaya in Moscow and Alexander Marrow in London; editing by David Goodman and Elaine Hardcastle)