Amsterdam-based Nebius Group (NBIS.O) made a strong entrance on the Nasdaq on Monday, closing 5.6% higher after overcoming significant early losses. This marks the company’s first trading session since February 2022, following its separation from Yandex, often referred to as “Russia’s Google.”
Trading for Nebius was suspended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, during which the stock was traded under Yandex’s ticker symbol through its Amsterdam parent company. The firm emerged in July after a $5.4 billion deal to divide Yandex’s Russian and international assets.
Initially, Nebius stock, which last traded at $18.94 per share in February 2022, plummeted 26% in pre-market trading but managed to recover throughout the day, closing at $20 per share.
Yandex, once boasting a market capitalization exceeding $30 billion, has seen its revenue-generating businesses, including online search, advertising, and ride-hailing, transferred to Russia. In contrast, Nebius is now positioning itself within the expanding AI cloud market, presenting a markedly different business model.
With a free float of 78.1% primarily held by Western investors and funds, the stock is expected to experience high volatility in its initial trading days, according to Denis Buivolov, a personal investor in Nebius and head of research at BCS’s venture capital and pre-IPO department.
In an analysis on Seeking Alpha, Buivolov valued Nebius at $4.6 billion, equating to $23 per share, based on the company’s plans and comparisons to peers like CoreWeave, Lambda Labs, and Sacra.
Dr. Jan-Oliver Strych, an advisor to his family fund that invested in Nebius, noted that the stock’s valuation would be influenced by a “positive liquidity shock” driven by high demand from AI investors, tempered by potential sell-offs from impatient shareholders.
Nebius, which specializes in providing Nvidia (NVDA.O) graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI cloud services, anticipates substantial growth in these markets in the coming years.
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