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Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

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Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#31

Post by [deleted] »

oscii wrote: post #21
calafrax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything "Uber will invest $225 million and take a 36.6 percent stake ... Yandex will invest $100 million and own 59.3 percent" If they are paying twice as much as their partner for a minority stake I am pretty sure they will not be coming away with anything.

From the article: > In Russia, Yandex.Taxi has gross bookings of $1.01 billion on an annualized basis, while Uber had $566 million, according to a presentation prepared for investors. Two companies will be merged (in Russia), but the brands will stay. The investment-stake asymmetry is probably due to the difference in the gross bookings.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#32

Post by COMMENT___ »

lukasm wrote: post #9
reactima wrote: post #4

Uber got very dominant in market share in Moscow with all its subsidized rides. I paid 200USD for 30 rides! This is not sustainable...

When I was in a small city outside Moscow I was paying $1.50 for a 1 min of a phone call and $1.40 for 10 mins cab ride. It was cheaper to take the cab and talk to someone than to make a call.

Did you call Alpha Centauri? Did you use Russian service provider?

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#33

Post by techinformed56 »

calafrax wrote: post #17
adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a moot issue. There was no scenario under which a Western firm was going to be allowed to dominate any meaningful Russian infrastructure long-term. Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything. In most industries Putin is reluctant to allow even his own oligarchs outright control. The notion he'd allow Uber to own their taxi / ride-hailing business is laughable (even assuming Uber could compete…

> Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything "Uber will invest $225 million and take a 36.6 percent stake ... Yandex will invest $100 million and own 59.3 percent" If they are paying twice as much as their partner for a minority stake I am pretty sure they will not be coming away with anything.

If you read other articles you can see that Uber spent 170M in Russia till now. Along with this 225M its a total 395M of spending. And now they got 36.6% stake in a company (now a leader in Russia) worth 3.4B. So Uber got 1.4B. How is that not coming out with anything? Uber did same thing in China. While we all think they lost in China, Uber seems to have spent around 2B or so but got away with close to 8B stake in Didi (leader in China). Any investor will be happy with those returns.

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#34

Post by calafrax »

techinformed56 wrote: post #33
calafrax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything "Uber will invest $225 million and take a 36.6 percent stake ... Yandex will invest $100 million and own 59.3 percent" If they are paying twice as much as their partner for a minority stake I am pretty sure they will not be coming away with anything.

If you read other articles you can see that Uber spent 170M in Russia till now. Along with this 225M its a total 395M of spending. And now they got 36.6% stake in a company (now a leader in Russia) worth 3.4B. So Uber got 1.4B. How is that not coming out with anything? Uber did same thing in China. While we all think they lost in China, Uber seems to have spent around 2B or so but got away with close to 8B stake in D…

They own a minority stake in an entity that has to pay Yandex for infrastructure, licensing rights and advertising which Yandex controls.

So this entity racks up a lot of debt (to Yandex) while making transfer payments to Yandex and then in a few years: "whoops, bankrupt!"

Now the equity holders (Uber) get wiped out and the company re-organizes and sells its assets (to Yandex) to pay off its debts (to Yandex) and Uber gets nothing.

Oh, NO! That's not legal! That's not fair! Good luck in Russian court buddy.

They are losing everything. They are burning another $225M to forestal the inevitable and pretend like it is not a complete loss but it is only a matter of time.

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#35

Post by COMMENT___ »

martinald wrote: post #12
baybal2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven't seen their prices in T2 cities, it is like $1 per 5 to 6 kms. And they have the problem of "Uberists" - people who drive themselves around when Uber subsidizes rides. And they also have issue of botters who do the same, but at industrial scale (without actually driving themselves or anybody else of course)

So they have two phones, one for driver and one for customer, and they request rides and accept themselves? Clever.

How does the driver ensure that he will receive his own order? AFAIK, a driver can reject an order, but this action will badly affect his rating in Uber's system.

I think that the rating system helps at least partially to fix this exploit (if it actually is an exploit and not a fantasy).

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#36

Post by malandrew »

oscii wrote: post #14
adventured wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a moot issue. There was no scenario under which a Western firm was going to be allowed to dominate any meaningful Russian infrastructure long-term. Uber is fortunate if they come away from Russia with anything. In most industries Putin is reluctant to allow even his own oligarchs outright control. The notion he'd allow Uber to own their taxi / ride-hailing business is laughable (even assuming Uber could compete…

> There was no scenario under which a Western firm was going to be allowed to dominate any meaningful Russian infrastructure long-term. I think that's not quite true. The industry (oil, car manufacturing, software, etc.) is pretty much dependent on the Western products and tech. Besides Uber, GetTaxi is quite popular in Russia. And there are more local similar taxi services besides Yandex, but they are less known. In…

> pretty much dependent on the Western products and tech.

There is a big difference between being dependent on Western products and tech and owning/operating those Western products and tech. I guess the risk of backdoors is still there, but if you own and operate everything, you can implement security that mitigates these risks, and the alternative of not having access to the tech at all is untenable.

The real privacy and national security concerns with ridesharing are on the demand side, and AFAICT this deal lets both companies retain control of their demand side. Ultimately, this deal allows Yandex control over the information of Yandex customers and Uber control over Uber customers.

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#37

Post by COMMENT___ »

Grue3 wrote: post #23

Damn. I used both and Uber is cheaper and much better customer service. Trying to get your money back from Yandex.Taxi is a kafkaesque nightmare.

I don't get it. What money back? For non satisfactory service? Or for not providing the service you paid for?

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#38

Post by Grue3 »

COMMENT___ wrote: post #37
Grue3 wrote: post #23

Damn. I used both and Uber is cheaper and much better customer service. Trying to get your money back from Yandex.Taxi is a kafkaesque nightmare.

I don't get it. What money back? For non satisfactory service? Or for not providing the service you paid for?

For example I had a case where a driver did not finish the ride when I got out of the car and did so 30 minutes later in some random location, and I got a huge bill. I also had a driver refuse me to drive me to the destination in the middle of a ride, I also refunded that. Not that Uber drivers don't do shit like this, but I found them more professional. Now that the two companies merged, it's gonna be the worst case scenario with monopoly-driven prices and shit drivers.

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#39

Post by in_cahoots »

COMMENT___ wrote: post #35
martinald wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they have two phones, one for driver and one for customer, and they request rides and accept themselves? Clever.

How does the driver ensure that he will receive his own order? AFAIK, a driver can reject an order, but this action will badly affect his rating in Uber's system. I think that the rating system helps at least partially to fix this exploit (if it actually is an exploit and not a fantasy).

If you don't receive your own order, have the passenger phone cancel the request and try again. I doubt the utilization is high enough that turning on the driver app immediately accepts a random request.

Re: Uber Cedes Russia to Yandex with $3.7B Merger Agreement

#40

Post by COMMENT___ »

Grue3 wrote: post #38
COMMENT___ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. What money back? For non satisfactory service? Or for not providing the service you paid for?

For example I had a case where a driver did not finish the ride when I got out of the car and did so 30 minutes later in some random location, and I got a huge bill. I also had a driver refuse me to drive me to the destination in the middle of a ride, I also refunded that. Not that Uber drivers don't do shit like this, but I found them more professional. Now that the two companies merged, it's gonna be the worst case…

Oh, now I get it. However, aren't you forgetting that a lot of Uber drivers in Russia were or are still driving with Yandex Taxi and Uber concurrently?

Uber does not really do anything special to ensure this professionalism in Russia except a brief screening, AFAIK.

That's why I don't think that anything will change from rider's perspective.

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