Ardoe Finance in Offering and Placement of GDRs in Mail.Ru Group

Cleary Gottlieb represented Ardoe Finance Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of USM Holdings, in an offering and placing of 15,538,000 global depositary receipts representing interests in ordinary shares (a 7.4% stake) in Mail.Ru Group Limited, the Russian internet services company. The GDRs were placed at a price of $34.25 each, raising net proceeds of approximately $532,000,000. Mail.Ru Group Limited has been listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange since its IPO in November 2010, on which the firm acted as issuer’s counsel.

USM Holdings is a diversified international company with significant interests across the metals and mining, telecoms, internet and media sectors. It was established in 2012 to consolidate the various investments and holdings of Alisher Usmanov, which are the result of more than 30 years of investment and business development activities.

Mail.Ru Group is a leading company in the Russian-speaking internet market, with sites reaching approximately 85% of Russian internet users on a monthly basis. The company is among the top 5 largest internet businesses based on the number of total pages viewed (comScore, December 2012).