Sistema in talks with Baring to buy stake in Ozon - paper
MOSCOW. Nov 26 (Interfax) - Sistema JSFC , a major Russian conglomerate, is holding negotiations with Baring Vostok Private Equity to buy a stake in Russian Internet group Ozon, which operates online retailer ozon.ru, business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday, citing sources.
Sistema is considering buying a blocking stake in Ozon, and the seller could be either Baring or other Ozon shareholders, a source close to the buyer said.
Baring values Ozon at up to $800 million, including debt, a source close to the former said. Baring invested in Ozon 13 years ago, paying $3 million for 51% of the company with UFG. In 2011, when Ozon raised a record $100 million in another round of funding, Baring's share was about 60%.
Ozon is currently preparing for a new round of investment, also targeted at $100 million.
The Ozon group includes five divisions: online store ozon.ru, delivery service O-Courier, travel service Ozon.travel, online footwear store Sapato.ru and a project to create online stores called eSolution.
Ozon is one of the biggest players on the Russian electronic commerce market. The group's turnover grew 73% to 15.3 billion rubles in 2012, and net revenue from the sale of goods and services jumped 63% to 7.8 billion rubles.
Ozon investors, besides Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund, include Index Ventures, ru-Net Ltd, Rakuten, Intel Capital, Holtzbrinck and Cisco.
National daily Kommersant, citing a market source, also reported that Sistema is holding negotiations on investing in Dream Industries, which owns the online music service zvooq.ru, ebook publication platform Bookmate and the Theory and Practice website for organizing lectures. However, one of the shareholders of Dream Industries, Alexei Ostroukhov said a possible deal would violate an injunction imposed by a Cyprus court in a dispute with other company shareholders who ousted him from the post of CEO. Ostroukhov owns 31.67% of Yano Holdings Ltd, which owns 70.2% of Dream Industries.
