That valuation is higher than expected (earlier reports predicted a $5 billion valuation).
Mail.ru, which includes largely Russian e-mail, social-networking and gaming sites, will float just over 3 million new shares and 28.59 million existing shares in the form of global depositary receipts at between $23.70 and $27.70 per GDR, it said in a regulatory disclosure.
Part of the proceeds of up to $876 million (which, for your reference, is a bit more than Facebook has raised since its founding) from Mail.ru Group’s IPO will be used to increase the company’s stake in Russia’s biggest social-networking website, vKontakte.ru, reports Russian business paper Vedomosti.
Mail.ru Group, which already owns social network Odnoklassniki.ru and ICQ, plans to buy a 7.5% stake in vKontakte for $112.5 million, valuing the site at $1.5 billion.
Mail.ru Group shareholders include Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, South African media company Naspers, China’s Tencent, Goldman Sachs, Tiger Global Management and DST founder Yuri Milner.
Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are acting as joint global coordinators for the IPO, and the banks are working with Morgan Stanley and VTB Capital as joint book-runners.
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Authors: Robin Wauters