AI firm Nebius, split from Russia's Yandex, gains in volatile Nasdaq debut

By Alexander Marrow

(Reuters) -Amsterdam-based Nebius Group closed 5.6% higher on Monday, recovering from huge early losses when trading for the first time since February 2022, as the AI infrastructure firm's Nasdaq listing, formerly held by Yandex (NASDAQ:NBIS ), often dubbed "Russia's Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL )", went live. 

Trading was suspended soon after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when the stock traded under Yandex's 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.

The stock, which had last traded at $18.94 per share in February 2022, slumped 26% in pre-market trading, but recovered all losses to gain 5.6% on the day and close at $20 per share.

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. 

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. 

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 (NASDAQ:NVDA ) graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI cloud as services, is anticipating sharp growth in those markets in 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.

Source: Investing.com