VK will change Delivery Club to "Yandex-News" and "Zen"

According toInterfax , VK will leave the O2O Holding JV, which operates in the field of transport and food technology. Having received the Delivery Club product delivery service at its disposal, VK will transfer it to Yandex in exchange for the Zen and News projects.

“On Tuesday, the companies announced that they had signed binding documents for an asset swap,” the statement said.

As the newspaper notes, no transfer of money in the exchange of assets is provided. The deal is expected to be fully closed before the end of 2022. In order for it to be completed, the parties to the agreement must obtain FAS approval.

It is expected that after the completion of the transaction, the main page of Yandex - yandex.ru - will become the dzen.ru portal, which is controlled by VK. At the same time, Yandex itself will focus on the development of its ya.ru page, focused on providing search service services .

When moving to Yandex, Delivery Club will retain its brand, app and website. Thus, there will be a merger of the Yandex Food service with the main competitor in the Delivery Club food delivery market, which previously competed with it. After the merger, both services will start working on a single technological platform.

The participants in the deal noted that, despite the division, they will remain “strategic partners” and will continue to “cooperate in various areas” in the future.

Earlier it was reported that Yandex had been looking for an opportunity to abandon the Novosti brand for a long time and was looking for potential interested parties in its acquisition.

The fact that the VK holding signed an agreement to purchase the Yandex.News news aggregator and the Yandex.Zen blogging platform from Yandex became known in April. In March, Yandex confirmed the likelihood of selling Yandex.News and Yandex.Zen services. Before that, RBC, citing a source, indicated that Yandex was going to sell both services, but the company said that they "do not comment on rumors."