Yandex NV (NASDAQ: YNDX) vaulted in early trade Thursday morning, following the announcement of its deal with Uber.
Yandex and Uber will combine their ridesharing businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus and Georgia into a new company. Uber will invest $225 million in Yandex and $100 million in Yandex's new company.
In addition, Uber has agreed to invest $225 million and Yandex has agreed to invest $100 million into NewCo, valuing it at $3.725 billion on a post-money basis.
A release out Thursday morning said, after these investments, and subject to certain adjustments at closing, NewCo will be owned approximately 59.3% by Yandex, 36.6% by Uber, and 4.1% by employees of the company, on a fully diluted basis. Tigran Khudaverdyan, currently the CEO of Yandex.Taxi, will become the CEO of the combined business.
The release went on to say NewCo will draw on the strengths of Yandex, the search, maps and navigation leader in the region, and Uber, the global ridesharing leader, to develop a fast-growing, sustainable business that best serves the needs of riders, drivers and cities.
After the closing of the transaction, consumers will be able to use both Yandex and Uber apps while the driver-side apps will be integrated, leading to shorter passenger wait times, increased driver utilization rates, and higher service reliability.
The Amsterdam-based Yandex is a technology company that claims to build “intelligent products and services powered by machine learning”.
Yandex shares jumped $4.14, or 15.2%, to $31.47 Thursday morning.
