Russian e-commerce company Ozon Holdings faced a setback on August 23 after Nasdaq rejected its appeal against the delisting of its American depositary shares (ADSs) on the US exchange.

The ruling dashed any remaining hopes that Ozon's securities might retain their listing on the US exchange.

One of Russia’s big four e-commerce firms, Ozon raised nearly $1bn in its initial public offering (IPO) towards the end of 2020 and has many international investors as shareholders. This successful debut set off a surge of IPOs among Russian firms in a brief boom between 2020 and 2021 that was abruptly brought to an end by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the period a total of 11 IPOs were made with around another 24 in the pipeline for 2024 and in the near future beyond. Thanks to sanctions, those international investors that bought Russian shares are now trapped in the Russian stock market with little prospect of ever recovering their investments.

Hopes that Ozon could maintain its US listing were bolstered by the Nasdaq decision not to delist the Russian tech giant Yandex NV from its New York exchange on June 8, provided the company completes plans to sell off all its Russian assets.

e-payment business Qiwi Group has also been given a similar reprieve and kept its Nasdaq listing while it tries to sell off its Russian assets. Qiwi announced plans to split its business into Russian and international divisions and said the process is expected to be completed by the end of August.

Ozon was hoping to do a similar deal.

Ozon redeemed 94% of its default convertible bonds worth $750mn on April 26, the company announced, as leading Russian companies try to unwind their commitments to international investors and keep something of their reputation intact.

Ozon said on July 28 that its ADRs have been admitted to trading on Kazakhstan's Astana International Exchange (AIX), which international investors do have access to, in a bid to maintain liquidity as Ozon struggled to keep its primary Nasdaq listing.

Following Russia's deployment of troops to Ukraine in February 2022, trading in Ozon's securities on Nasdaq was promptly suspended. This suspension also extended to Russian company listings on the London Stock Exchange.

Ozon said that it received a notification on August 18 that its latest efforts to avert delisting had not been fruitful. Nevertheless, the company pointed out that the Nasdaq board of directors could potentially revisit this decision in an upcoming meeting.

"Our ADSs will not be delisted from Nasdaq until all available review and appeal procedures and periods available under the Nasdaq listing rules have expired," the company said in a statement, Reuters reports.

Other Russian publicly traded entities like Headhunter have already been delisting from Nasdaq.

 

 

 

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