Russian business daily Vedomosti revealed this past Friday that United Capital Partners (UCP), the Russian fund that currently owns 48% of Vkontakte (VK.com), has offered to sell its stake to majority shareholder Mail.ru Group.
Mail.ru Group has been trying to take full control of the network for several years – a step which Vkontakte’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov fiercely opposed some time ago but seems to support now due to his conflictual relations with UCP.
However, despite making Mail.ru Group an offer, UCP are in no rush to sell. UCP partner Viktoriya Lazareva told Vedomosti that “we are in no hurry – VK has plenty of room for development and growth.” However, she admitted that as a “financial investor” UCP will always consider “a good offer”.
At present though it seems that Mail.ru Group and UCP have a different idea of what a ‘good offer’ looks like. It is reported that UCP wants to receive both cash and shares in Mail.ru Group in exchange for its 48% stake, and that it wants the Mail.ru shares to be insured – meaning that Mail.ru must buy them back if their value falls below a fixed sum.
An inside source told Vedomosti that the UCP’s current offer is “two times higher than could be considered fair”, meaning that a lot of negotiations will be required before some kind of middle ground is reached.
It seems that the Vkontakte shareholder saga is going to go on and on.
