LONDON, UK: VK Company and Yandex have signed binding agreements whereby VK is to acquire Zen and News content platforms from Yandex in exchange for the food and grocery delivery service Delivery Club which VK is to consolidate within the framework of the restructuring of O2O Holding, a joint venture between VK and Sber.

The deal is expected to be close by the end of 2022, pending a set of regulatory approvals. Following completion, VK will receive rights to technologies and trademarks of Zen and News services.

Following deal closure Zen and News services will be available on the dzen.ru portal, which will also feature the Yandex search bar and other services. Zen will retain all its current content monetization instruments for creators, while users will be able to choose the most preferred format of browsing the news and other content, either via dzen.ru portal’s desktop version or its own mobile app.

“Creation and development of convenient content services for users is among VK’s top strategic priorities. While Zen is a unique platform popular with millions of users, already holding a leading market position but with also major development potential. Integration with VK will open up access for Zen’s content creators to new users as well as new formats. In the meantime, users will be able to enjoy even more quality content from education to entertainment,” CEO of VK (Russia) Vladimir Kirienko noted.

“We highly appreciate the results achieved by the Zen team, and consider it right to give the team the opportunity to continue to develop independently, enabling the service to bring new content and evolve existing products faster and more efficiently, while further expanding its audience.”

Meanwhile, VK Company announced the signing of binding documents under which the company will receive 100% of the restaurant and grocery delivery service Delivery Club and exit the O2O Holding joint venture.

The deal is expected to close before the end of 2022, pending the receipt of a number of regulatory approvals. Following deal closure, VK and Sber are to remain strategic partners and will continue to cooperate in various areas.

In the future, VK plans to transfer its entire stake in Delivery Club to Yandex as part of the deal to acquire Zen and News content platforms.

VK is one of the largest technology companies in Russia. Its products help millions of people with their day-to-day needs online. More than 90% of the Russian internet audience use VK services, which enable people to keep in touch, play video games, master new skills, listen to music, watch and create video content, buy and offer goods and services, order food and grocery delivery and fulfill wide range of other needs.

The company provides a number of solutions for digitizing business processes, from online promotion and predictive analytics to corporate social networks, cloud services and enterprise automation