• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, October 11, 2010 12:17 PM

Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group -- which boasts strategic investments in some top U.S. Web companies - is inching closer to an IPO valued at about $750 million, reports The Wall Street Journal. Noting major shareholders from Russia, China, and South Africa, "The deal highlights the growing independence of emerging-market Internet firms from their developed-market peers," notes The Journal.

Mail.ru expects the IPO would take place this year on the London Stock Exchange, at which point existing shareholders will list global depositary receipts, each valued equivalent to one share. "The company may be valued at around $5 billion, with a stake of close to 15% being sold on the exchange," writes The Journal citing two sources familiar with the matter. Formerly named Digital Sky Technologies, Mail.ru includes the Russian email and gaming website Mail.ru, the ICQ instant-messaging system it acquired from AOL, social networking site Odnoklassniki.ru, and stakes in Russian networking site VKontakte.ru and payment-terminal system Qiwi. It also holds small stakes in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »