• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 26, 2023

The clock is ticking on Yandex's restructuring deal, but reports now suggest it is not expected to be completed until early 2024.

The delay puts plans for the search engine and other business units on hold.

The Russian tech company and search engine listed on the Nasdaq flourished until Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

In an effort to save the company, Yandex NV, a Dutch holding company, has been working to restructure for months, according to Reuters, citing three sources.

Reuters on Monday reported that the deal initially was expected to close in December, but any and all deals require approval from shareholders and Russia's government. And that has not been completed.

Yandex and the Kremlin have been engaged in negotiations for more than a year. The goal is to spin off Yandex's Russian businesses from its Dutch parent company, Yandex NV, and recoup shareholder funds through the sale of the company’s search and ride-hailing operations.

The sale would raise the funds to develop four other business lines internationally.

Time is running out to complete the deal this month. One source told Reuters the company had made "great progress." Another said the goal is now to complete the deal in the first quarter of 2024. A third said they expected the deal to be completed in the “beginning” of 2024.

It has been a bumpy ride for Yandex and its co-founder Arkady Volozh this year. Volozh was sanctioned after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for condemning Russia’s war, and now lives under “the permanent threat of retaliation” from Russia, William Julie, a lawyer for Volozh told the European Union’s General Court at a hearing in early December, according to Bloomberg.

Yandex registered in the Netherlands in 2007, but has come under pressure from Russia and abroad since Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Volozh resigned as Yandex CEO after the EU sanctioned him last year for the role the search engine had in promoting Russian propaganda and disinformation about the war.