“Let it go” is probably a good description of how Yandex top management felt after splitting off its Russian assets, renouncing Russian citizenship and renaming itself Nebius. Nebius is a play on Moebius. Yet another try, this time around it is not a search engine.
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In a current market it is hard to get exceptional and wonderful business at a reasonable price. Usually these companies have to go through some drama for the price of the stock to be beaten up. Most recently I recall Meta stock going through TikTok onslaught prior to reels rolling out on Instagram, Opera and Square being beat up due to Hindenburg short thesis (I bow to them for these opportunities). Well, Nebius, formerly known as Yandex, had to go through some serious Squid-Games like drama.
Nebius is some sort of new kid on the block, who is neither new, nor kid, but rather a very familiar company that has shed a lot of weight in order to build its new legacy.
Nebius is a result of a West/East split of the Yandex group. Whatever had business presence in Russia is now Yandex. Whatever was relocated and could be marketed to Western world is now Nebius. Dutch company Yandex. N.V. sold its Russian interest for 5.2 bil , paid 50% exit tax on it due to being from an “unfriendly” country and moved on with its life.
It is remarkable that I first bought a bit of Yandex right before it got *frozen* for 2.5 years until that transition happened. It is a prime example of Buffett's motto to buy stocks of companies so that you’re not worried about them even if the stock market is closed for the next 10 years.
Some might ask: “Stock got *frozen* for 2.5 years?”
Response #1: yes! Nasdaq didn’t know how to handle a Dutch company that sources majority of its revenue from Russia so while there were no sanctions on it, it decided to freeze trading in that Dutch company, while Russian companies were simply booted from Western exchanges.
Response #2: Again, that frozen song comes to my mind again. *No right, no wrong, no rules for me*
*I'm free Let it go, let it go.* Volozh (CEO of Nebius) is now unschackled and its top management can do something entirely new in an era which sees less and less traffic going through the web search and more and more to AI agents. Lucky timing, eh?
**In a classic Peter Lynch scenario most of US institutional investors are afraid to touch it**
* They've never seen a company of this size split West/East before (I did though. proof: [5-bagger $COE split this way away from China and into Singapore](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/srw26f/coe_netnet_with_2x_margin_of_safety_and_25x_upside/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) )
* They don’t know into which mutual fund and ETF category to put it.
* Haven’t seen even a year worth of financials.
* Can’t figure out how to price:
* 3.2 bil of cash
* [Toloka.ai](http://Toloka.ai), Tripleten and AVRide for autonomous driving partnership with Uber
* GPU AI datacenters that management is talking about.
* 28% stake in VC funded Clickhouse.
It is classic Peter Lynch investment opportunity. Misunderstood and out of favor.
Unfortunately for us, NVIDIA and others did know how to price it and invested 700 mil into this eclectic mix. This gives a solid social proof boost no cap. So it is good and bad only for those who didn't snatch it in $18-$21 range.
My personal take is that NBIS is a reasonably safe investment in the price range between $15 and $32. The higher the price, the less safe it is. It is hard to price assets such as [Toloka.ai](http://Toloka.ai), Tripleten, AVRide and Clickhouse stake. One can look at NBIS as a VC fund that one could buy under its assets value. Another comparison is IAC or Liberty media. I believe Nebius will spin off or sell off some of its companies in IAC / Liberty Media style.
So here you go, yours truly who considers himself a value investor now has the majority of his money and your portfolios in a VC-like company run by de facto refugees/immigrants. The last time such a talent exodus happened was sometime between 1933 and 1940. That time around the source of talent was Germany and one of Germans - Klaus Fuchs even ended up building an atomic bomb for the US. **I believe Volozh and his team will give no Fuchs about the past**, *will test the limits and break through.*
**To conclude**, I’m long on VC-like investment opportunities run by some very established, bright and talented refugees/immigrants to write their new legacy outside of the Motherland.
**I’m in with Nebius for the long term and hope you’re too. As long as we don't give Fuchs about volatility and sleep well, we're good.**
My other post on Nebis was giving a good break out of financials / pricing for the company and trying to convince ValueInvesting heads to scoop it up while it was cheap even on Benjamin Graham terms.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1h5f6iv/nbis\_what\_are\_we\_waiting\_for/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1h5f6iv/nbis_what_are_we_waiting_for/)
**My skin in the game: 29% of my total net worth in NBIS stock**