#THE LAST TAXI DANCE DRIVERS#

YANDEX TAXI GENERATES RAPID GROWTH AT HIGH COST AND MOUNTING LOSSES However, this came at a high cost for Yandex, according to this breakdown of the business segments in the companyвЂ™s Form 20-F filing to the SEC, dated last week. Revenues for Yandex Taxi jumped from Rb2.3 billion in 2016 to Rb4.9 billion in 2017, a rate of growth of 111%. Yandex financial reports indicate that last year the number of Yandex-controlled taxi rides in Russia more than doubled, compared to 2016. In 2010, Volozh had entertainedthen-President Dmitry Medvedev at YandexвЂ™s California laboratory. Since 2015 Volozh has been a regular guest at PutinвЂ™s annual oligarch dinner. Volozh hosted President Vladimir Putin on a visit to the Moscow headquarters of Yandex on September 21, 2017, the twentieth anniversary of the company. With a current market capitalization on the NASDAQ exchange of $12.8 billion, Volozh has almost recovered from the collapse of his share price which began in 2014 with the start of the war in Ukraine and the US and European Union sanctions following. According to Yandex filings at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Volozh owns just over 49% of the voting shares in the company.

Yandex Taxi is a subsidiary of the Yandex group, registered in The Netherlands and controlled from Moscow by the chief executive, Arkady Volozh (right).

Yandex Taxi agreedlast year with Uber of the US to create an enlarged taxi operation for an investment outlay of about $400 million, and with an asset valuation of $3.8 billion.

#THE LAST TAXI DANCE DRIVERS#

In Moscow they are the dominant aggregators supplying cab companies and drivers with the order, reservation, despatch and routing services operated in the old days by taxi company control- rooms. ASAP owes them for advertising and online order and despatch services. Gett says it is owed Rb190.5 million ($3.3 million) Yandex Taxi, Rb57.8 million ($1 million). Last December Yandex Taxi and Gett (formerly Get Taxi) filed their claims against ASAP. VEB-Leasing isnвЂ™t ASAPвЂ™s biggest creditor. JANUARY 2018 - THE VEB-LEASING CEMETERY FOR ASAP DEFAULTING TAXIS

Like the taxi company, VEB-Leasing is sufferingitself from the economic contraction of the past three years, as the number and value of new lease agreements dwindle, clients default, and losses grow. The court papers claim ASAP owes Rb16.6 million ($291,000) in interest and lease charges. The most recent court claims were filed in March by VEB-Leasing, the state-owned lender. ASAP operated under the brand-names Nexi and Grandee. If everything goes according to the Sobyanin plan most Moscow taxi drivers believe the mayor has agreed to, there will soon be a near-monopoly of the cityвЂ™s taxis by the Yandex group controlled by Arkady Volozh.ДЄSAP, with an officially estimated taxi park of about 3,000 cars, is facing debt and bankruptcy claims in the Moscow Arbitrazh Court totalling Rb285.7 million (about $5 million). Yellow is not the only uniformity to be achieved by the city transport administration under Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, as the largest of the city cab companies, ASAP, has gone bankrupt, and its owner has disappeared in the direction of the island haven of the Seychelles. The kaleidoscope of taxi colours which followed the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of entrepreneur cabbies and imported western cars ends when the last five-year licenses for multi-coloured taxis expire.

In just three monthsвЂ™ time, on July 1, all licensed Moscow taxis will have to be painted yellow.

The last taxi dance