Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies (DST) today formally announced the acquisition of Russian social network Odnoklassniki.ru, which we reported on last week.
DST has bought out out the minority shareholders in Forticom Group Limited – which it now fully owns – and Odnoklassniki, and interestingly transferred its interest in the Polish social network Nasza-Klasa.pl to the previous minority shareholders of Forticom as part of the deal.
Russian newspaper Vedomosti, which reported on the transaction before the announcement was made, pegged the deal size at in between $14 million and $28 million.
Founded in March 2006, Odnoklassniki.ru is said to gave generated revenues of $4m in 2009 from display advertising, paid services, contextual links and social games, with a net income of $11 million in 2009. The social networking site claims 45 million registered accounts, attracting 10 million visitors on a daily basis.
The investment group in a statement also confirms that the deal with Naspers has been completed. DST has now effectively assumed control of over 99.9% of Mail.ru, the leading communication and entertainment platform in the Russian-speaking Internet world with over 50 million registered email accounts.
DST is said to be mopping up many of the companies that it already has an interest in ahead of possible plans for an IPO, which could be valued at as much as $6 billion.
DST has holding in lots of companies in the social web space, most notably having backed Facebook, Groupon and Zynga.
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