NEW YORK (AFP) – Yandex shares soared on Tuesday as Russia's top Internet portal and leading search engine made its Wall Street debut amid feverish investor enthusiasm for technology stocks.
Shares in Yandex, which is being traded under the ticker symbol "YNDX," gained 55.36 percent on the Nasdaq to close at $38.84.
Yandex, the first Russian company to carry out an initial public offering on the Nasdaq since 2006, is seeking to raise $1.3 billion in the largest Internet IPO since Google's in 2004.
The company will keep a total of $365 million, using the proceeds for "general corporate purposes, including investments in technology infrastructure, particularly new servers and data centers."
Yandex, valued at $8 billion, offered 52.2 million shares at $25 each with an option of selling an additional 5.2 million shares to cover over-allotments.
Yandex's IPO comes less than a week after career-focused social-networking firm LinkedIn staged a dazzling public launch of its own on Wall Street.
LinkedIn shares more than doubled in price after launching on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, reviving memories of the infamous dot-com boom.
Renren, China's largest social network, went public on May 4 at an IPO price of $14. The shares soared in the first few days of trading but have since fallen and closed at $12.26 on Tuesday, below their offer price.
In November Mail.ru -- Russia's largest free e-mail service -- raised $912 million on the London Stock Exchange.
In its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Yandex cited Mail.ru and Google as its chief rivals.
"We face strong competition from global and Russian companies that provide Internet search and other online services and content," it said. "Currently, we consider our principal competitors to be Google and Mail.ru."
Yandex accounted for 64 percent of search traffic in Russia last year and was the largest Russian Internet company in revenue terms. It reported profits of $134.3 million last year on revenue of $439.7 million.
Its website, yandex.ru, which was launched in 1997, received 38.3 million unique visitors in March.
"Investors are attracted to the fast-growing Internet companies, especially the ones that are the dominant companies in their markets," said Renaissance Capital analyst Stephanie Chang.
She said she was not surprised by the eagerness for Yandex shares "especially after LinkedIn's successful IPO last week."
"LinkedIn attracted a lot of attention because it had that social media angle to it," Chang said.
"Yandex is one of the only publicly traded Russian companies so that?s a good way for investors interested in growth in the Russian online advertising market to get access," she said.
Yandex was founded by Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich, who met while studying mathematics and physics in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Volozh is currently chief executive of Yandex while Segalovich serves as the company's chief technology officer.
The Russian edition of Forbes magazine lists Volozh as the 114th richest person in the country with a fortune estimated at $900 million. Segalovich's wealth was estimated at $600 million, making him the 159th richest.
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