Investors expect volatile Nasdaq return for AI firm split from Russia's Yandex
Nebius emerged after $5.4 billion deal to split Yandex's assets
High volatility expected due to 78.1% free float held by Western investors
Nebius anticipates revenue growth of$500-$700 million by 2025
By Alexander Marrow
Oct 21 (Reuters) -Investors in Amsterdam-based Nebius Group NBIS.O expect volatile trading on Monday when the AI infrastructure firm's Nasdaq listing, formerly held by Yandex, often dubbed "Russia's Google", is revived following a lengthy suspension.
Trading was suspended soon after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when the stock traded under Yandex's YNDX.O ticker through its Amsterdam-based parent company. In July, Nebius emerged following a $5.4 billion deal to split Yandex's Russian and international assets.
Yandex once reached a market capitalisation of more than $30 billion, but with revenue-generating businesses in online search, advertising and ride-hailing siphoned off in Russia, Nebius, which targets a slice of the growing AI cloud market, presents a very different proposition.
The stock last traded at $18.4 per share in February 2022. With a free float of 78.1%, mainly held by Western investors and funds, extremely high volatility is likely in the first few days, said Denis Buivolov, a personal investor in Nebius and head of research at BCS' venture capital and pre-IPO department.
In an analysis published on financial website Seeking Alpha, Buivolov valued the company at $4.6 billion, or $23 per share, based on company plans and comparisons with firms such as CoreWeave, Lambda Labs and Sacra.
Another investor, with a shareholding once worth around $200,000, said they may buy more shares on Monday should the price plummet as people who have written off their stakes are forced to sell.
Dr Jan-Oliver Strych, adviser to his family fund which invested in Nebius, said the stock's value would be determined by the positive liquidity shock from hyped AI investor demand versus the negative impact of impatient sellers.
Nebius, whose core business involves providing Nvidia NVDA.O graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI cloud as services, is anticipating sharp growth in those markets in the coming years.
The company expects its revenue to grow by three to four times in 2025 to $500-$700 million, it said on Friday, as it plans to spend between $600 million and $1.5 billion on capital expenditure to increase capacity at data centres in Finland, France and North America.
Reporting by Alexander Marrow, Editing by Louise Heavens
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