Yandex, Mail.ru and Russian culture

The government plans to create a fund to support developers of games about Russian culture and history. Subsidies could be given to creators of computer, mobile and online games. According to Kommersant sources, the idea of creating the fund was promoted by Mail.ru Group and Yandex, which will be the obvious beneficiaries of the project.

Should this be taken as a reason to buy Yandex or Mail.ru shares, and which of them look more promising? The question of Fortrader magazine was answered by Sergey Drozdov, an expert at Univer Capital.

- I don't think they really expect to make money on this either. Yandex does not engage in games, Mail.ru mainly works in the segment of mobile games, where it is quite difficult to promote any values or ideas - not the most convenient format. Besides, these companies have enough financial resources of their own to invest in such projects without funding from the fund, the receipt of which will require going through various bureaucratic procedures.

Perhaps the reasons why these companies are lobbying for the creation of the fund are different. For example, they expect that being involved in the work of this fund as experts will make it easier for them to find promising young personnel or even those projects they can invest in as investors.

I don't think it will have any short-term effect on their stock price, but it will certainly be beneficial in the long run.