Ramler bought from "Finam" 25% shares of Begun for $18m and now holds 50.1%. Both sides have reached consent and will sign contract in next couple days. "Finam" will still keep 49.9% of Begun.

Representative of Begun Sergei Basov said that contracts can be signed this Friday. He explained that this deal is very similar to 2003 deal between Yahoo! and Overtue, and was very expectable.

In 2003 "Finam" bought 100% of Begun for $750k and in a year time sold 25,1% of shares to Rambler for same price, keeping 74,9%. At the same time they made a deal that Rambler will have a chance to increase it's shares to 50,1% in 2007 for defined price. Details of this deal are kept in secret.

Actual price of begun today is more than $200m, so todays deal is incredibly profitable for Rambler.

[translated from http://www.e-xecutive.ru/news/piece_19756/]