Friday, July 18th, 2008 by Andy Beal

9

Google’s Russian Monopoly Begins with Acquisition of Begun

According to Mashable, Google just acquired Russian contextual ad company Begun for $140 million and grabbed a monopoly in Russia’s contextual advertising market in the process.

Begun is currently owned by two companies, leading to an interesting double-deal:

[Rambler Media Ltd] currently holds 50.1% of Begun. The transaction will consist of Rambler buying the remaining 49.9% stake in Begun from Bannatyne Limited, affiliated with the Finam group of companies, immediately after which Rambler will sell 100% of Begun to Google subject to certain approvals and conditions precedent for a total cash consideration of US$140 million, of which US$69.9 million is attributable to Bannatyne, with customary closing adjustments.

Anyone know how similar the Russian language is to Klingon? ;-)


Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!

Similar Stories in: M&A | Forward: Email This Post

Share this post

Share on TwitterStumble This!Bookmark on DeliciousShare on FriendFeedDigg This!Share on Facebook

 

 

Similar posts you may like...

9 comments on “Google’s Russian Monopoly Begins with Acquisition of Begun”

  1. Google Announce Acquisition of Begun | Tug Search Engine Marketing Blog Says:

    July 18th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    [...] into the Russian search market and looking to gain dominance over its competitors. Read more at Marketing Pilgrim. Social Bookmark This Post NowSubscribeDiggdel.icio.usFacebookTechnorati  Posted on: [...]

  2. Fifty Studio Says:

    July 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am

    The problem is that Russia is corrupt beyond belief. After the fall of communism there a lot of wealthy people came in and took over utilities and many other hi dollar businesses. It will be interesting to see how business pans out for Google in that country.

  3. Erik Says:

    July 19th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

    Corrupt or not, what a good purchase for Google. They now have the only company in Russia supplying ads to a rapidly growing advertising medium. Sounds pretty good to me. Can I buy more google?

    Erik’s last blog post..Surrounded by Freelance Entrepreneurs

  4. Travel Point Says:

    July 20th, 2008 at 1:12 am

    The local hires by Google will ensure that they survive in the so called corrupt system.

    Travel Point’s last blog post..The Samba of Brazil

  5. Goran Web Design Says:

    July 20th, 2008 at 6:22 am

    Corrupt or not its another country that Google is acquiring market share with, its the world wide web and that means that Google must control the world to control the web.

  6. PS3 Says:

    July 20th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

    There are clearly a lot of extremely rich individuals in Russia and corruption may have played a part in them. Nonetheless, what interests me more is the extent of internet access to the working man over there, what sort of coverage do they have?

  7. Web Marketing Man Says:

    July 21st, 2008 at 2:44 am

    Google keeps on gobbling them up. Bet they wish they could make inroads like this into the Chinese market. Their intent is clear however. Asia WILL eventually fall to the might og Google….

  8. Nick Stamoulis Says:

    July 21st, 2008 at 8:22 am

    Google is just trying to gain market share to the Russian search engine giant, Yandex…must they be #1 everywhere?

    Nick Stamoulis’s last blog post..Social Blogging Can Attract The Masses

  9. Russian Group Finam to Acquire 50% of German Deluxe Television  »TechAddress Says:

    July 23rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    [...] the name Finam as they were the venture capital firm for Russian contextual ad firm Begun which was recently acquired by [...]