A fascinating acquisition has taken place in Russia where Google, which has not traditionally performed well in the Russian search engine market, has paid one of its competitors $50 million for their share of the Begun contextual advertising system. The total acquisition value of Begun was $140 million – but a signficant slice of that will be paid to Rambler’s partner in Begun – Bannatyne Ltd.

Meanwhile, Rambler, the original control owner of Begun, continues to compete with Google as a search engine which is now richer than it was before with having, according to its own press release, a net cash position of $100 million to pursue “further investments and acquisitions in line with Rambler’s stated strategy.” Begun is known to have typically paid lower prices to publishers and cost less for advertisers – no doubt the Google involvement will change that in some way.

The English press release is available here.

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