HeadHunter (HHR) 20-F2020 FY Annual report (foreign)

Table of Contents

UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 20-F

Commission file number 001-38882

Securities registered or to be registered, pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act

Securities registered or to be registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Table of Contents

Securities for which there is a reporting obligation pursuant to Section 15(d) of the Act: None

Indicate the number of outstanding shares of each of the issuer's classes of capital stock or common stock as of the close of the period covered by the annual report. 50,317,860 ordinary shares

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.

ý Yes    o No

If this report is an annual or transition report, indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

o Yes    ý No

Note—Checking the box above will not relieve any registrant required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 from their obligations under those Sections.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.

ý Yes    o No

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files).

ý Yes    o No

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of "large accelerated filer," "accelerated filer," and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

If an emerging growth company that prepares its financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. o

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management's assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. o

Indicate by check mark which basis of accounting the registrant has used to prepare the financial statements included in this filing:

If "Other" has been checked in response to the previous question indicate by check mark which financial statement item the registrant has elected to follow.

o Item 17    o Item 18

If this is an annual report, indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).

o Yes    ý No

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

1

Table of Contents

2

Table of Contents

ABOUT THIS ANNUAL REPORT

        Except where the context otherwise requires or where otherwise indicated in this Annual Report, the terms "Zemenik Trading Limited," "HeadHunter," the "Company," "Group," "we," "us," "our," "our company" and "our business" refer to HeadHunter Group PLC, together with its consolidated subsidiaries as a consolidated entity.

        All references in this Annual Report to "rubles," "RUB" or " " "refer to Russian rubles, the terms "dollar," "USD" or "$" refer to U.S. dollars and the terms "€" or "euro" refer to the currency introduced at the start of the third stage of European economic and monetary union pursuant to the treaty establishing the European Community, as amended.

PRESENTATION OF FINANCIAL AND OTHER INFORMATION

        We report under International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS") as adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (the "IASB"). None of our financial statements were prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. We present our consolidated financial statements in rubles.

        On February 24, 2016, Zemenik Trading Limited, which we converted into HeadHunter Group PLC prior to our initial public offering on May 8, 2019 (our "IPO"), acquired all of the outstanding equity interests of Headhunter FSU Limited (the "Acquisition") from Mail.Ru Group Limited (LSE: MAIL) ("Mail.Ru").

        In March 2017, we divested the business through which we historically conducted operations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, CV Keskus. In April 2018, we divested the business through which we historically conducted operations in Ukraine, HeadHunter LLC (Ukraine). Unless otherwise specified, our operational metrics presented in this Annual Report, including the number of CVs in our CV database and the number of job postings on our platform, exclude information from CV Keskus and HeadHunter LLC (Ukraine).

        On December 25, 2020, we completed an acquisition of 100% of the issued charter capital of LLC "Zarplata.ru" ("Zarplata.ru") from Hearst Shkulev Digital Regional Network B.V. Unless otherwise specified, our operational metrics presented in this Annual Report, including the number of CVs in our CV database, the number of job postings on our platform, personnel headcount, internet traffic and other exclude information for Zarplata.ru. See also Item 5. "Operating and Financial Review and Prospects—Segments" for more information about the impact on our financial presentation for future periods.

Use of Non-IFRS Financial Measures

        Certain parts of this Annual Report contain non-IFRS financial measures, including, among others, EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Net Income Margin, Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization). We define:

•

EBITDA as net income/(loss) plus: (1) income tax expense; (2) net interest (income)/expense; and (3) depreciation and amortization.



•

Adjusted EBITDA as net income/(loss) plus: (1) income tax expense; (2) net interest expense/(income); (3) depreciation and amortization; (4) transaction costs related to business combinations; (5) (gain)/loss on the disposal of subsidiary; (6) transaction costs related to disposal of subsidiary; (7) expenses related to equity-settled awards, including related social taxes; (8) IPO-related costs; (9) insurance expenses related to the IPO; (10) (income) from the

3

Table of Contents

depositary; (11) one-off litigation settlement and related legal costs; (12) share of (profit)/loss of equity-accounted investees; and (13) secondary public offering ("SPO") related costs.

•

Adjusted Net Income as net income/(loss) plus: (1) transaction costs related to business combinations; (2) (gain)/loss on the disposal of subsidiary; (3) transaction costs related to the disposal of subsidiary; (4) expenses related to equity-settled awards, including related social taxes; (5) IPO-related costs; (6) insurance expenses related to IPO; (7) (income) from the depositary; (8) one-off litigation settlement and related legal costs; (9) share of (profit)/loss of equity-accounted investees; (10) amortization of intangible assets recognized upon the acquisition by HeadHunter Group PLC of the outstanding equity interests of HeadHunter FSU Limited from Mail.Ru Group Limited (the "Acquisition"); (11) the tax effect of the adjustment described in (10); (12) (gain)/ loss related to the remeasurement and expiration of a tax indemnification asset; (13) net (gain)/loss on financial assets measured at fair value through profit and loss; and (14) secondary public offering ("SPO") related costs.



•

EBITDA Margin as EBITDA divided by revenue.



•

Adjusted EBITDA Margin as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenue.



•

Adjusted Net Income Margin as Adjusted Net Income divided by revenue.



•

Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) plus: (1) transaction costs related to business combinations; (2) expenses related to equity-settled awards, including related social taxes; (3) IPO-related costs; (4) insurance expenses related to the IPO; (5) one-off litigation settlement and related legal costs; and (6) secondary public offering ("SPO") related costs.

        EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are used by our management to monitor the underlying performance of the business and its operations. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are used by different companies for differing purposes and are often calculated in ways that reflect the circumstances of those companies. You should exercise caution in comparing EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as reported by us to EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as reported by other companies. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are unaudited and have not been prepared in accordance with IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles.

        EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are not measurements of performance under IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles, and you should not consider EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin or Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as alternatives to net income, operating profit or other financial measures determined in accordance with IFRS or other generally accepted accounting principles. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses

4

Table of Contents

(Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation. Some of these limitations are:

•

EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) do not reflect our cash expenditures or future requirements for capital expenditures or contractual commitments,



•

EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) do not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs, and



•

the fact that other companies in our industry may calculate EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) differently than we do, which limits their usefulness as comparative measures.

        Accordingly, prospective investors should not place undue reliance on EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) or the other non-IFRS financial measures contained in this Annual Report.

5

Table of Contents

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

        This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements that relate to our current expectations and views of future events. These statements relate to events that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including those listed under Item 3. "Key Information, D. Risk Factors," which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

        In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "believe," "may," "will," "expect," "estimate," "could," "should," "anticipate," "aim," "estimate," "intend," "plan," "believe," "potential," "continue," "is/are likely to" or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report include, but are not limited to, statements about:

•

our future financial performance, including our revenue, operating expenses and our ability to achieve and maintain profitability;



•

our expectations regarding the development of our industry and the competitive environment in which we operate;



•

the growth in the usage of our mobile platform and our ability to successfully monetize this usage;



•

the growth of our brand awareness and overall business; and



•

our ability to improve our user experience, product offerings and technology platform and product offerings to attract and retain job seekers.

        These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, some of which are beyond our control. In addition, these forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are not a guarantee of future performance. Actual outcomes may differ materially from the information contained in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including, without limitation, the risk factors set forth in Item 3. "Key Information, D. Risk Factors" and the following:

•

a regional or global health pandemic, including COVID-19, potential actions taken to contain a disease, and speed and extent of the recovery could severely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition due to impacts on our customers;



•

significant competition in our markets;



•

our ability to maintain and enhance our brand;



•

our ability to improve our user experience, product offerings and technology platform to attract and retain job seekers;



•

our ability to respond effectively to industry developments;



•

our dependence on job seeker traffic to our websites;



•

our reliance on Russian internet infrastructure;



•

global political and economic stability;



•

concerns about computer viruses, undetected software errors and hacking;



•

privacy and data protection concerns;



•

our ability to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting;



•

our ability to effectively manage our growth; and

6

Table of Contents

•

our ability to attract, train and retain key personnel and other qualified employees.

        We operate in an evolving environment. New risks emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can we assess the effect of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

        The forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report relate only to events or information as of the date on which the statements are made in this Annual Report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. You should read this Annual Report and the documents that we have filed as exhibits hereto completely and with the understanding that our actual future results or performance may be materially different from what we expect.

7

Table of Contents

PART I

Item 1.    Identity of Directors, Senior Management and Advisers

        Not applicable.

Item 2.    Offer Statistics and Expected Timetable

        Not applicable.

Item 3.    Key Information

A.  [Reserved.]

B.  Capitalization and Indebtedness

        Not applicable.

C.    Reasons for the Offer and Use of Proceeds

        Not applicable.

D.  Risk Factors

        You should carefully consider the risks described below before making an investment decision. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. Our business, financial condition or results of operations could be materially and adversely affected by any of these risks. The trading price and value of our ADSs could decline due to any of these risks, and you may lose all or part of your investment. This Annual Report also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including the risks faced by us described below and elsewhere in this Annual Report.

Risks Relating to our Business and Industry

We face significant competition, which may cause us to suffer from a weakened market position that would materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

        The markets for our products and services are highly competitive and rapidly evolving. Successful execution of our strategy depends on our continuous ability to attract and retain job seekers and customers, expand the market for our products and services, maintain a technological edge and offer new capabilities to customers. We face competition in our various lines of services from competitors that focus exclusively on online recruitment, such as SuperJob and Rabota.ru (which was acquired by Sberbank, Russia's largest commercial bank, in 2019 as part of its broader strategy of expanding its ecosystem), and from those that offer recruitment as part of their broader services portfolio, such as Avito. Other powerful internet companies with a broad local presence in our markets that have extensive and loyal user bases, such as Yandex (currently present in the recruitment market via an aggregator platform Yandex.Rabota and launched its horizontal classifieds business, Yandex Advertisement, in November 2020; Yandex.Talents, a recruitment chat bot that automates communication with candidates, was closed shortly before launch of Yandex Advertisement) and Mail.Ru (which acquired Worki in 2019 and rebranded it as VK Jobs in 2021), may decide to directly target our customers, thereby intensifying competition in the recruitment market. Further, our existing competitors or new market entrants may target new and emerging job seeker candidates, such as youths, which, if successful, could harm our business and reputation. Although professional social networking businesses with online recruitment functions historically have not had significant market positions in Russia, such businesses may dedicate extra resources to expand their operations and as a

8

Table of Contents

result, become a significant competitive threat in the future. In particular, should the current government block on the services of the social networking site LinkedIn be lifted, LinkedIn may choose to compete with us in the Russian market. Social networks or professional networking sites like LinkedIn may benefit from access to large pools of passive potential job seekers and a broad range of user information that they could leverage to tailor their recruitment services. See also Item 4. "Information on the Company, B. Business Overview—Competition."

        In addition, we may face competition in the future from new entrants in the recruitment advertising industry and other human resource industries in which we operate, such as dedicated recruitment ads aggregators like Indeed, social networking websites such as Facebook, career-related internet portals and existing participants in the offline recruitment industry who may develop online recruitment services and products, as well as other HR service providers who may enter the market for any or all of our services. In particular, certain specialized HR technology companies have emerged that have advanced technological capabilities that may be difficult to replicate and/or compete against. Furthermore, in 2019 Google enhanced its job search function in Russia, as well as in other countries globally, by adding a user function called "Google for Jobs." There can be no assurances that this will not negatively impact our business. While we believe that achieving true scale in these markets would require significant investment, competitors may nonetheless attempt to enter the recruitment advertising industry or upscale operations with relatively limited initial investment. Current competitors may also consolidate or be acquired by an existing or prospective player, which could result in the emergence of another stronger competitor, leading to a potential loss of our market share. There can be no assurances that we will maintain our position as the leading online recruitment platform, particularly if our key competitors consolidate or if large search engines, social media or other online platforms successfully leverage their large user bases to gain access to our markets. To the extent such a competitor significantly increased its market share, our services may become relatively less attractive to our customers, which could reduce our websites' traffic and demand for our services and products as well as advertising space.

        We also believe that there are relatively low existing penetration rates for online recruitment services in some of our regional markets, particularly in regions we view as key growth markets for our services. Our existing competitive advantages over new entrants may be reduced or we may be at a disadvantage compared to our competitors who have greater market penetration, a better understanding of the regional market and/or a superior marketing strategy, in particular, in markets where our brand and business model are relatively untested. If successful, competitors could acquire significant numbers of customers and establish a significant market share within a relatively short period, thereby curbing our growth potential in those regions.

        We compete with these existing and future entities for both job seekers and customers. From time to time, our customers may decide not to renew their contracts upon expiration for various reasons. Our customers may also decide to switch to our competitors' services. Some of our existing or potential new competitors may have greater resources, capabilities and expertise in management, technology, finance, product development, sales, marketing and other areas than we have. They may use their experience and resources to compete with us in a variety of ways, including by competing more heavily for customers, spending more on advertising and brand marketing, investing more in research and development and making acquisitions. If we are unable to compete effectively, successfully and at reasonable cost against our existing and future competitors, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If we fail to maintain and enhance our brand, our business, results of operations and prospects may be materially and adversely affected.

        We believe that maintaining and enhancing our brand are of significant importance to the success of our business. A well-recognized brand is critical to increasing the number and the level of

9

Table of Contents

engagement of job seekers and, in turn, enhancing our attractiveness to customers. We have conducted and may continue to conduct various marketing and brand promotion activities, including print and television advertisements. We cannot assure you, however, that these activities will be successful or that we will be able to achieve the brand promotion effect we expect. In addition, our competitors may increase the intensity of their marketing campaigns, which may force us to increase our advertising spend to maintain our brand awareness.

        In addition, any negative publicity relating to our products or services, regardless of its veracity, could harm our brand and the perception of our brand in the market. If our brand is harmed, we may not be able to continue to attract a growing job seeker base, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If we fail to improve our user experience, product offerings and technology platform, we may not be able to attract and retain job seekers and employers, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

        Our success depends upon our ability to attract and retain both employers and job seekers. Customers are the primary source of our revenue. A key factor in attracting and retaining employers is our ability to grow our CV database and attract and retain high-quality job seekers. A key factor in attracting and retaining job seekers, in turn, is maintaining and increasing the number of employers using our services and the quantity and quality of job postings on our system.

        To satisfy both customers and job seekers, we need to continue to improve their experience as well as innovate and introduce products and services that employers and job seekers find useful and that cause them to return to our website and use our services more frequently. This includes continuing to improve our technology platform to optimize recruitment search results, tailoring our database to additional geographic and market segments and improving the user-friendliness of our website. In addition, we need to adapt, expand and improve our products, services and interfaces to keep up with changing user preferences. For example, with the growing propensity for our job seekers to use smartphones as their main job searching devices, we need to further optimize our mobile applications and continue modifying and updating them to successfully manage the transition to mobile devices of users of our products and services. It is difficult to predict the problems we may encounter in innovating and introducing new products and services, and we may need to devote significant resources to the creation, support and maintenance of our solutions.

        We provide no assurances that our initiatives to improve our user experience will always be successful. We also cannot predict whether our new products or service offerings and delivery methods will be well received by employers and job seekers, or whether improving our technology platform or introducing new service delivery channels will be successful or sufficient to offset the costs incurred to offer these services. If we are unable to increase and retain our employers and job seekers, or maintain and increase the quantity or quality of CVs and job postings, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If we are not able to respond successfully to technological or industry developments, including changes to the business models deployed in our industry, our business may be materially and adversely affected.

        The market for online products and services is characterized by rapid technological developments, frequent launches of new product and services, changes in customer needs and behavior and evolving industry standards. As a result, our industry is constantly changing product offerings and business models in order to adopt and optimize new technologies, increase cost efficiency and adapt to customer preferences. There can be no assurances that our key competitors will not suddenly decide to change their business model or marketing strategy, which could be more successful than ours. If other industry participants rapidly shift their business models, for example, to a cost-per-action based model in which

10

Table of Contents

fees are generated by user actions, we may be unable to shift our business model or marketing strategy quickly or efficiently enough to compete with these changes. This could result in a loss of customers, and our brand and reputation, business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        In addition, companies currently are developing products that directly compete with products in our recruitment-centric VAS portfolio. As our VAS portfolio is currently a relatively small part of our business, we may be at a disadvantage compared to other companies in this market that may be able to leverage greater resources, market knowledge or technical know-how to develop superior proprietary technologies. If such developments are successful, these competitors could attract our customers to their interfaces and away from our platform, limiting our ability to become a comprehensive, integrated full-scale HR platform. These developments may make our existing services obsolete or less competitive. In order to respond to such developments, we may be required to undertake substantial efforts and incur significant costs. In the event that we do not successfully respond to such developments in a timely and cost-effective manner, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If job seeker traffic to our website declines for any reason, our business and results of operations may be harmed.

        Our ability to attract and retain job seekers on our website is critical for our continuing growth. If job seeker traffic on our website declines for any reason, our business and results of operations may be harmed. Our competitors' search engine optimization efforts may result in their websites receiving a higher search result page ranking than ours. Internet search engines could revise their methodologies, which may adversely affect our search result page ranking. Any such changes could decrease user traffic to our website and adversely affect the growth in our user base, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Any disruption in internet access, telecommunications networks or our technology platform may cause slow response times or otherwise impair our users' experience, which may in turn reduce user traffic to our website and significantly harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

        Our online recruitment business is highly dependent on the performance and reliability of Russia's internet infrastructure, accessibility of bandwidth and servers to our service providers' networks and the continuing performance, reliability and availability of our technology platform. Telecommunications capacity constraints in Russia may impede further development of our business and internet usage more generally to the extent that users experience delays, transmission errors and other difficulties.

        Our data center and all of our backup centers are located in Moscow and, therefore, we are heavily reliant on Russia's internet infrastructure to operate our business. Since these centers are located along with our headquarters in Moscow, our operations may also be negatively impacted by disruptions to power, natural disasters or other events affecting Moscow. In addition, if there were any system outages due to any internet delays, disruptions, natural disasters or any other issues in Russia more generally, this would have a material adverse impact on our business and operating results depending on the length and severity of the issue.

        We also rely on major Russian telecommunication companies, data center service providers and other infrastructure service providers to support our bandwidth, data storage and other services. We may not have access to comparable alternative networks or services in the event of any disruptions, failures or other problems. Any extreme disruptions in internet access, or in the internet generally, could significantly harm our business, financial condition and operating results. In November 2019, the majority of the provisions of the Russian Federal Law No. 90-FZ "On certain amendments to the Federal Law 'On communications"' and the Federal Law "On information, information technologies

11

Table of Contents

and information protection" dated May 1, 2019 (the "Sovereign Internet Law"), which is aimed at ensuring the safe and sustainable functioning of the internet in the Russian Federation, came into force. The Sovereign Internet Law provides requirements for Russian telecom operators to install new equipment provided by the Russian authorities to ensure that the Russian internet can function autonomously in case the global internet is not operating in Russia or in the case of certain types of threats (for example, cyber-threats). The Sovereign Internet Law imposes certain obligations on others, including holders of unique identifiers of communications and other technical systems in the internet ("autonomous system numbers"), which also includes us. These obligations include having to report on the existing infrastructure in certain cases (including when required by the authorities, in case of a breakdown and in other circumstances), and participate in trainings arranged by the Russian authorities as provided for by legislation. In addition, the Sovereign Internet Law introduces the notion of the "Russian national domain zone," which includes the Russian resources registered on "ru", "RF", "su" and other domains. The Russian national domain zone will be made up of its own infrastructure (root servers and proprietary domain names). The provisions governing the Russian national domain zone became effective from January 1, 2021. The Sovereign Internet Law is broadly drafted, grants the authorities certain discretion, and in order to fully implement the measures set out in the Sovereign Internet Law, Russian authorities will need to adopt a significant number of additional acts and procedures to further clarify the provisions of the Sovereign Internet Law. Russian authorities already adopted certain material implementing acts, including rules on traffic routing in the event of a "threat," rules on the installation of counter-threat equipment, certain technical specifications and rules on liability of holders of autonomous system numbers for non-compliance with the Sovereign Internet Law, which includes administrative fines up to 6 million. Russian authorities may be required to adopt further subordinate legislation if any practical issues arise in the implementation of such legislation. The application of the Sovereign Internet Law may, among other things, impact our infrastructure, reduce our data transfer speed significantly, block or restrict the use of certain services due to centralized data traffic and result in interruptions and delays in services for Russian users. See also "—Failure to comply with existing laws and regulations or to obtain all approvals, authorizations and permits, or the findings of government inspections or increased governmental regulation of our operations, could result in a disruption in our business and substantial additional compliance costs and sanctions." Furthermore, we may not timely and effectively scale and adapt our existing technology and network infrastructure to ensure our website is accessible within an acceptable load time, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        We may experience website disruptions, outages and other website performance problems for a variety of reasons, including infrastructure changes, human or software errors, capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of users accessing our website simultaneously and denial of service or fraud or security attacks. In addition, we may experience slow response times or system failures due to a failure of our information storage, retrieval, processing and management capabilities. Slow response times or system failures may drive our job seekers away, reduce the attractiveness of our products and services or discourage employers and recruiters from posting jobs on our websites. If we experience technical problems in delivering our services over the internet, we could experience reduced demand for our services, lower revenue and increased costs.

Computer viruses, undetected software errors and hacking may cause delays or interruptions on our systems and may reduce the use of our services and damage our reputation and brand names.

        Our online systems, including our website, apps and our other software applications, products and systems could contain undetected errors, or "bugs," that could adversely affect their performance. Additionally, we regularly update and enhance our website and our other online systems and introduce new versions of our software products and applications. The occurrence of errors in any such update or enhancement may cause disruptions in our services and may, as a result, cause us to lose market share,

12

Table of Contents

and our reputation and brand name, business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        In addition, computer viruses and hacking may cause delays or other service interruptions on our systems. "Hacking" involves efforts to gain unauthorized access to information or systems or to cause intentional malfunctions, loss or corruption of data, software, hardware or other computer equipment.

        While we currently employ various antivirus and computer protection software in our operations, we cannot assure you that such protections will successfully prevent hacking or the transmission of any computer virus, which could result in significant damage to our hardware and software systems and databases, disruptions to our business activities, including to our e-mail and other communications systems, breaches of security and the inadvertent disclosure of confidential or sensitive information, interruptions in access to our website through the use of "denial of service" or similar attacks and other material adverse effects on our operations.

        We may incur significant costs to protect our systems and equipment against the threat of, and to repair any damage caused by, computer viruses and hacking. Moreover, if a computer virus or hacking affects our systems and is highly publicized, our reputation and brand names could be materially damaged and usage of our services may decrease. In addition, the inadvertent transmission of computer viruses could expose us to a material risk of loss or litigation and possible liability.

Privacy and data protection concerns, including evolving government regulation in the area of consumer data privacy or data protection, could adversely affect our business and operating results.

        The effectiveness of our technology, including our artificial intelligence ("AI") and platforms, and our ability to offer our products and services to job seekers and our customers rely on the collection, storage and use of data concerning job seekers and employers, including personally identifying or other sensitive data. Our collection and use of this data for job searches, job matching, data analytics or communications outreach might raise privacy and data protection concerns that could negatively impact the demand for our services. For example, our AI relies on the collection and use of data that we gather from job seekers, employers and various other sources, including external sources. Privacy and data protection laws could restrict or add regulatory and compliance processes to our ability to effectively use and profit from those services, and any security breach or incident that we experience could result in unauthorized access to, misuse of, or unauthorized acquisition of our or our users' data. Any such incidents could expose us to claims, litigation, regulatory or other governmental investigations, administrative fines and potential liability.

        The government of the Russian Federation, for example, has enacted consumer data privacy or data protection legislation, including laws and regulations applying to the solicitation, collection, transfer, processing and use of personal data. This legislation could reduce the demand for our recruiting services if we fail to design or enhance our services to comply with the privacy and data protection measures required by the legislation. Moreover, we may be exposed to liability under existing or new consumer privacy or data protection legislation.

        If we were found to be subject to and in violation of any privacy or data protection laws or regulations, our business may be materially and adversely impacted and we would likely have to change our business practices and potentially our product portfolio. In addition, these laws and regulations could impose significant costs on us and could make it more difficult for us to use our current technology to match job seekers with employers and vice-versa. In addition, if a breach of data security were to occur, or other violation of privacy or data protection laws and regulations were to be alleged, solutions may be perceived as less desirable and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

13

Table of Contents

We may use open source software in a manner that could be harmful to our business.

        We use open source software in connection with our technology and services. The original developers of the open source code provide no warranties on such code. Moreover, some open source software licenses require users who distribute open source software as part of their software to publicly disclose all or part of the source code to such software and/or make available any derivative works of the open source code on unfavorable terms or at no cost. The use of such open source code may ultimately require us to replace certain code used in our products, pay a royalty to use some open source code or discontinue certain products. Our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected by any of the above requirements.

Real or perceived inaccuracies of our internally calculated or third-party sourced operating metrics may harm our reputation and adversely affect our business and operating results.

        We source most of our operating statistics, which are included in this Annual Report and which we regularly communicate to the market, from independent online statistics providers such as LiveInternet, comScore, SimilarWeb and others. Some of our data providers calculate the number of our average unique monthly visitors ("UMVs") based on the number of different cookies or device IDs from which a website or a mobile application of ours is visited during a given day based on our internal data, which has not been independently verified. There are inherent challenges in measuring our UMVs accurately. For example, user devices with poor internet connectivity may fail to trigger the Java script code to record the unique visitor data. On the other hand, a user who visits our websites as well as our mobile applications on a given day may be counted as multiple UMVs due to the different cookies and IDs of the devices used to visit our websites and mobile applications.

        Our measures of calculating operating metrics may differ from estimates published by third parties or from similarly titled metrics used by our competitors or other parties due to differences in methodology. In addition, our metrics may immaterially change retroactively if, for example, a job seeker is blocked and his/her CV is removed. If customers, employers or investors do not perceive our operating metrics to be accurate representations of our user base, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our operating metrics, our reputation may be harmed, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We are subject to potential legal liability from both employers and job seekers with respect to our job matching suggestions and other human resource related services.

        We are exposed to potential claims associated with the recruitment process, including claims by customers seeking to hold us liable for recommending a candidate who subsequently proves to be unsuitable for the position filled, claims by current or previous employers of our candidates alleging interference with employment contracts, claims by candidates against us alleging our failure to maintain the confidentiality of their employment search or alleging discrimination or other violations of employment law or other laws or regulations by our customers, and claims by either employers or candidates alleging the failure of our business process outsourcing services to comply with laws or regulations relating to employment, employee's insurance or benefits, individual income taxes or other matters.

        We may also be subject to claims or regulatory sanctions over actions by third parties beyond our control, such as misrepresentation of information, misuse of personal data or other inappropriate or unlawful actions by candidates or customers using our platform. In our user agreements and customer contracts, we have specific clauses where we explicitly deny any responsibility for actions by third parties or for the accuracy of information they provide to us, and it is a violation of our terms and conditions to misuse our services. Nevertheless, there can be no assurance that these preventative measures will fully protect us from any such claims, which, regardless of merit, may force us to

14

Table of Contents

participate in time-consuming, costly litigation or investigation, divert significant management and staff attention, and damage our reputation and brand names. We do not maintain insurance coverage for liabilities arising from claims by employers, candidates or third parties.

Our business may suffer if we do not successfully manage our current and potential future growth.

        We have grown significantly in recent years and we intend to continue to expand the scope and geographic reach of the services we provide. Our total revenue increased from 6,118 million in the year ended December 31, 2018 to 8,282 million in the year ended December 31, 2020. Our anticipated future growth will likely place significant demands on our management and operations. Our success in managing our growth will depend, to a significant degree, on the ability of our executive officers and other members of senior management to operate effectively, and on our ability to improve and develop our financial and management information systems, controls and procedures. In addition, we will likely have to successfully adapt our existing systems and introduce new systems, expand, train and manage our employees and improve and expand our sales and marketing capabilities.

        Revenue growth may slow or revenue may decline for any number of reasons, including our inability to attract and retain job seekers, decreased customer spending, increased competition, slowing growth of the overall online job search market, the emergence of alternative business models, changes in government policies and general economic conditions. We may also lose users for other reasons, such as a failure to deliver satisfactory search results or transaction experiences or high quality services.

        Certain factors may also prevent or delay growth in our industry, which could adversely affect our development and growth plans. Despite relatively high overall internet penetration levels in Russia, penetration of online recruitment services has historically been low and may not increase as quickly as we anticipate. Internet penetration levels throughout Russia have historically been uneven, with much higher penetration levels in urban areas, and these discrepancies could continue. The use of online services in general may decelerate, for example, as a result of slower economic development, declining population levels or declining investment in infrastructure. In addition, the pace of adoption of online recruitment services by blue collar job seekers could be slower than anticipated due to the continuing popularity of traditional recruitment channels, such as newspapers, billboards and word-of-mouth. The number of small and medium enterprises, which we believe represent an underpenetrated and growing segment of our market, could remain stable or start to decline, driven, for example, by adverse macroeconomic conditions. Any of these factors could frustrate our ability to realize our growth strategy and cause us to reevaluate our strategic goals and development priorities.

        If we are unable to properly and prudently manage our operations as they continue to grow, or if the quality of our services deteriorates due to mismanagement, our brand name and reputation could be severely harmed, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

If we are unable to maintain and expand our scale of operations and generate a sufficient amount of revenue to offset the associated fixed and variable costs, our results of operations may be materially and adversely affected.

        Online businesses like ours tend to involve certain fixed cost bases, and our ability to achieve desired operating margins in our recruitment business depends largely on our success in maintaining a scale of operations and generating a sufficient amount of revenue to offset the associated fixed and variable costs. Our fixed costs typically include compensation of employees, data storage and bandwidth expenses and office rental expenses. Our variable costs typically include commission-based compensation of sales employees and marketing expenses. As we have established the technology and network infrastructure to support an online business model, the incremental cost of adding new job postings and CVs online is relatively insignificant. We can serve additional customers and users with

15

Table of Contents

decreasing average cost. If we are unable to maintain economies of scale, our operating margin may decrease and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We may not be able to successfully halt the operations of copycat websites or misappropriation of our data.

        From time to time, third parties have misappropriated our data, including CV data, through website scraping, robots, copying CV or other data or other means and have aggregated this data on their websites with data from other companies. In addition, "copycat" websites may attempt to imitate the functionality of our website. Specifically, we have in the past experienced attempts by third parties or businesses who have purchased a paid subscription and received authorized access to our website to copy CV or other data from our website and use such information in a manner that violates our contractual the terms of use with such party (such as setting up copycat websites). We cannot assure you that similar events will not occur in the future and may materially and adversely impact our results of operations.

        If we become aware of such websites, businesses or third parties, we would employ technological or legal measures, including initiating lawsuits, in an attempt to halt their operations. However, we may not be able to detect all such activities in a timely manner and, even if we could, technological and legal measures may be insufficient to stop their operations. In some cases, our available remedies may not be adequate to protect us against such activities. Regardless of whether we can successfully enforce our rights against these websites or third parties, any measures that we may take could require us to expend significant financial or other resources, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        In addition, Russian law requires that operators (controllers) of personal data, such as us, undertake certain organizational and technical measures to protect the personal data that we process and to prevent unauthorized or illegal actions with respect to such data. Should it be determined by the relevant governmental body that such unauthorized copying and further use of job seekers' CVs and personal data contained therein became possible due to our failure to undertake such measures, we may be subject to administrative penalties and civil litigation. See also "—Applicable legislation imposes restrictions and requirements on us with respect to processing of certain types of personal and other data and data retention which may impose additional obligations on us, limit our flexibility, or harm our reputation with users."

If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        We rely on registered trademarks and confidentiality agreements to protect our intellectual property rights. To date, we have received only one patent to protect our machine learning recommendation system used on our platform, but other elements of our platform remain unprotected. Third parties may obtain, copy, reverse engineer or use without our authorization our intellectual property, which includes trademarks related to our brand, products and services, registered domain names, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights and licenses.

        Historically, the Russian legal system and courts have not protected intellectual property rights to the same extent as the legal system and courts of the United States. Companies operating in Russia continue to face an elevated risk of intellectual property infringement as compared to other jurisdictions such as the United States. Furthermore, the validity, application, enforceability and scope of protection of intellectual property rights for many internet-related activities, such as internet commercial methods patents, are uncertain and still evolving, which may make it more difficult for us to protect our intellectual property, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

16

Table of Contents

We may be vulnerable to intellectual property infringement claims brought against us by others.

        We rely to some extent on third-party intellectual property, such as licenses to use software to operate our business and certain other copyrighted works. Although we have never experienced any material intellectual property claims against us in the past, as we face increasing competition and as litigation becomes more common in Russia as a way of resolving commercial disputes, we face a higher risk of being subject to intellectual property infringement claims. A successful infringement claim against us could result in monetary liability or a material disruption in our business. Although we require our employees not to infringe others' intellectual property, we cannot be certain that our products, services, content and brand names do not or will not infringe on valid patents, trademarks, copyrights or other intellectual property rights held by third parties. We may be subject to legal proceedings and claims from time to time relating to the intellectual property of others in the ordinary course of our business.

        We may incur substantial expenses in defending against third party infringement claims, regardless of their merit. As a result, due to diversion of management time, expenses required to defend against any claim and the potential liability associated with any lawsuit, any significant litigation could significantly harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we were found to have infringed on the intellectual property rights of a third party, we could be liable to that party for license fees, royalty payments, lost profits or other damages, and the owner of the intellectual property may be able to obtain injunctive relief to prevent us from using the technology, software or brand name in the future. If the amount of these payments were significant, if we were prevented from incorporating certain technology or software into our products or services or if we were prevented from using our brand name, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We are exposed to the risk of violations of anti-corruption laws, anti-money laundering laws, and other similar laws and regulations.

        We operate and conduct business in Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and have de-minimis operations in other countries such as Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. These are countries where there is a high risk of fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption. We have policies and procedures designed to assist compliance with applicable laws and regulations and we are subject to the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 ("FCPA") and the UK Bribery Act 2010 (the "Bribery Act"). The FCPA prohibits providing, offering, promising, or authorizing, directly or indirectly, anything of value to government officials, political parties, or political candidates for the purposes of obtaining or retaining business or securing any improper business advantage. The provisions of the Bribery Act extend beyond bribery of government officials and create offences in relation to commercial bribery. These provisions are more onerous than the FCPA in a number of other respects, including jurisdiction, non-exemption of facilitation payments and penalties. In particular, the Bribery Act (unlike the FCPA) does not require proof of corrupt intent to be established in relation to bribery of a public official and also creates offenses for being bribed as well as bribing another person. Furthermore, unlike the vicarious liability regime under the FCPA, whereby corporate entities can be liable for the acts of its employees, the Bribery Act introduced a new offense applicable to corporate entities and partnerships that carry on part of their business in the UK that fail to prevent bribery, which can take place anywhere in the world, by persons who perform services for or on behalf of them, subject to a defense of having adequate procedures in place to prevent the bribery from occurring. This offense can render parties criminally liable for the acts of their agents, joint venture, or commercial partners even if done without their knowledge.

        We maintain internal compliance policies and procedures, however, we can provide no assurances that these policies and procedures will be followed at all times or effectively detect and prevent all violations of the applicable laws and every instance of fraud, money laundering, bribery and corruption.

17

Table of Contents

We can provide no assurances that internal reports of potential violations of our internal compliance policies will not be made in the future or that violations of applicable anti-bribery or money laundering laws, including the FCPA will not occur. As a result, we could be subject to potential civil or criminal penalties under relevant applicable laws which may have adverse consequences on our business, prospects, financial condition or results of operations if we fail to prevent any such violations or are the subject of investigations into potential violations. In addition, such violations could also negatively impact our reputation and consequently, our ability to win future business. The consequences that we may suffer due to the foregoing may cause our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations or reputation to be materially and adversely affected.

We engage in de minimis activities relating to Crimea, and these activities could impede our ability to raise funding in international capital markets and subject us to liability for noncompliance relating to various trade and economic sanctions laws and regulations.

        In response to certain geopolitical tensions, a number of countries, including the United States, EU countries and Canada, imposed a variety of trade and economic sanctions aimed at Russia as well as certain individuals and entities within Russia and Ukraine. In December 2014, the President of the United States issued Executive Order Number 13685, which established a region-specific embargo under U.S. law for the Crimea region. Among other things, this embargo generally prohibits U.S. persons and U.S. companies from engaging in investments in the Crimea region or most import or export trade in goods and services with parties in the Crimea region. Pursuant to Executive Order Number 13685, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), has also placed parties operating in the Crimea region on the OFAC list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons ("SDN List"). U.S. persons and U.S. companies are generally prohibited from engaging in most transactions or dealings with parties on the SDN List. Currently, less than one percent of paying job seekers and customers who use our product and services are self-identified as being located in the Crimea region. In addition, since 2015, significantly less than one percent of our revenue has been generated from job seekers and customers located in the Crimea region. While we believe that current United States and EU sanctions do not preclude us from conducting our current business, new sanctions imposed by the United States and certain EU member states may restrict certain of our operations in the future. To the extent applicable, existing and new or expanded future sanctions may negatively impact our revenue and profitability, and could impede our ability to effectively manage our legal entities and operations both in and outside of Russia or raise funding from international financial institutions or the international capital markets. Although we take steps to comply with applicable laws and regulations, our failure to successfully comply with applicable sanctions may expose us to negative legal and business consequences, including civil or criminal penalties, government investigations and reputational harm.

We depend upon talented employees, including our senior management, product and development specialists to grow, operate and improve our business, and if we are unable to retain and motivate our personnel and attract new talent, we may not be able to grow effectively.

        Our success depends on our continued ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate and retain talented employees. Our ability to execute and manage our operations efficiently is dependent upon contributions from all of our employees. Competition for senior management and key product and development personnel is intense and the pool of qualified candidates is to an extent limited. From time to time, some of our key personnel may choose to leave our company for various reasons, including change of interests or career development plans, compensation, or working relations with our board or with other team members, which could result in management turnover. If we are unable to retain the services of our key personnel or properly manage the working relationship among our management and employees, this may mean we will become exposed to legal or administrative

18

Table of Contents

proceedings or adverse publicities and our reputation may be harmed, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        Training of new employees with no prior relevant experience could be time-consuming and require a significant amount of resources. We may also need to increase the compensation we pay in order to retain our skilled employees. If competition in our industry further intensifies, it may be more difficult for us to hire, motivate and retain highly skilled personnel, especially high quality developers as there is currently significant market demand for this role. If we fail to attract additional highly skilled personnel or retain or motivate our existing personnel, we may be unable to grow effectively or at all, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Employee misconduct is difficult to determine and detect and could harm our reputation and business.

        We face a risk that may arise out of our employees' lack of knowledge or willful, negligent or involuntary violations of laws, rules and regulations or other misconduct. Misconduct by employees could involve, among other things, the improper use or disclosure of confidential information (including trade secrets), embezzlement or fraud, any of which could result in regulatory sanctions or fines imposed on us, as well as cause us serious reputational or financial harm. Misconduct by employees may result in unknown and unmanaged risks and losses. It is not always possible to guard against employee misconduct and ensure full compliance with our risk management and information policies, and the precautions we take to detect such activity may not always be effective. The direct and indirect costs of employee misconduct can be substantial and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

A regional or global health pandemic, including COVID-19, potential actions taken to contain a disease, and speed and extent of the recovery could severely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition due to impacts on our customers.

        A regional or global health pandemic, depending upon its duration and severity, could have a material adverse effect on our business. For example, in March 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and governmental authorities around the world have implemented measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including shutdowns and "shelter-in-place" orders suggested or mandated by governmental authorities or otherwise elected by companies as a preventive measure. During the spring 2020, the Russian government introduced a number of recommendations and restrictions, including declaring a "period of non-working days," which limited business activity, as well as other restrictions on the movement of citizens and a limitation on most commercial activities. These restrictions differed in scope across various regions of the Russian Federation and were subject to change, resulting in the frequent strengthening and relaxation of such restrictions in different regions. These measures have adversely affected workforces, our customers, economies and financial markets, and the pandemic has had a significant impact of the economies in all of our markets.

        As a result of the government's imposed "period of non-working days" and social distancing measures introduced across the country, some businesses continued to work from home, while many others ceased operating or began operating in very limited capacities. Accordingly, business activities were significantly adversely affected across Russia during this period, including recruitment and hiring processes, as many companies put their hiring on hold or decreased the number of new hires they originally planned. Due to this decrease in activity, the number of job postings advertised on our platform, the number of candidates browsing job postings on our database and our revenue decreased from mid-March. Although we started to see a recovery in the activity on our platform in the end of 2020, there can be no assurance that such decrease will not recur. If the level of activity decrease on

19

Table of Contents

our platform, it could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

        As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and upon the recommendation of the Russian authorities, in March 2020 we transitioned our employees to remote working arrangements and temporarily closed our offices. At the moment, most of our employees continue to work remotely. Although we benefit from being a fully digital business and have not experienced any material disruptions to our operations to date, it is possible that this could have a negative impact on the execution of our business plans and operations. If a natural disaster, power outage, connectivity issue, or other event occurred that impacted our employees' ability to work remotely, it may be difficult or, in certain cases, impossible, for us to continue our business for a substantial period of time. The increase in remote working may also result in consumer privacy, IT security and fraud concerns, as well as increase our exposure to potential wage and hour issues, and our understanding of applicable legal and regulatory requirements, as well as the latest guidance from regulatory authorities in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, may be subject to legal or regulatory challenge, particularly as regulatory guidance evolves in response to future developments.

        We are unable to accurately predict the impact that COVID-19 will have on our operations going forward due to uncertainties that will be dictated by the length of time that the pandemic and related disruptions continue, the impact of governmental regulations that might be imposed in response to the pandemic, the efficiency and efficacy of vaccination programs and overall changes in our customers' behavior.

        To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business and financial results, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this "Risk Factors" section.

We do not have and may be unable to obtain sufficient insurance to protect ourselves from business risks.

        The insurance industry in the Russian Federation is not yet fully developed, and many forms of insurance protection common in more developed countries are not yet fully available or are not available on comparable or commercially acceptable terms. We do not currently maintain insurance coverage for our offices or servers, business interruptions or third party liability in respect of property or environmental damage arising from accidents on our property or relating to our operations. Until we obtain adequate insurance coverage, there is a risk of loss or destruction of certain assets, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Our substantial indebtedness may adversely affect our financial health.

        We currently have substantial indebtedness. As of December 31, 2020, we had total indebtedness of 8,276 million, which consisted of a new 4,615 million syndicated credit facility with VTB Bank (PJSC) entered on August 24, 2020, as amended (the "New Credit Facility"), of which 243 million of the principal amount has been repaid as of December 31, 2020 and a 4,000 million bond issued on December 14, 2020. The New Credit Facility was entered into by Headhunter LLC and superseded a syndicated credit facility agreement between HeadHunter Group PLC and Zemenik LLC and VTB Bank (PJSC), dated May 16, 2016, as amended, and is collateralized with the shares of Headhunter FSU Limited and participation interest in Headhunter LLC, as well as independent guarantees provided by HeadHunter Group PLC, Headhunter FSU Limited and Zemenik LLC. The New Credit Facility was amended on December 10, 2020 ("New Amendment No. 1"), to allow us, subject to customary conditions, to proceed with matters related to the issuance of exchange 4-billion-ruble bonds by Headhunter LLC, which were subsequently issued on December 14, 2020. Moreover, the New Amendment No. 1 provided an additional leverage of 1 billion on top of currently available credit limit, which could be utilized within 270 days after date of the New Credit Facility Agreement. The

20

Table of Contents

additional facility was not withdrawn as of the date of this Annual Report. See Item 5. "Operating and Financial Review and Prospects, B. Liquidity and Capital Resources—Indebtedness."

        Our substantial indebtedness may have important consequences for us. For example, it may:

•

make it more difficult for us to make payments on our indebtedness;



•

increase our vulnerability to general economic and industry conditions, including recessions and periods of significant inflation and financial market volatility;



•

require us to use a substantial portion of cash flow from operations to service our indebtedness, thereby reducing our ability to fund capital expenditures and other expenses;



•

limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate;



•

place us at a competitive disadvantage compared to competitors that have less indebtedness;



•

limit our ability to borrow additional funds that may be needed to operate and expand our business; and



•

restrict our ability to pay dividends.

        Any of the above would materially and adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.

We have significant intangible assets on our balance sheet. Consequently, potential impairment of intangible assets may have an adverse material effect on our profitability.

        Since the Acquisition, intangible assets have represented a significant portion of our assets. Goodwill and other intangible assets, which are comprised primarily of our brand name, CV database and non-contractual customer relationships, collectively amounted to 73.3% of our total consolidated assets as of December 31, 2020. We assess the potential impairment of intangible assets on at least an annual basis, as well as whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value may not be recoverable. We may be required to record significant impairments in the future. Some of the developments, which could cause us to recognize impairment of goodwill or other intangible assets, include significant underperformance relative to historical or projected future operating results or significant negative industry or economic trends. Although the recording of such impairments does not trigger an immediate cash impact, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected, and significant future impairments of our intangible assets could reduce our profitability to such an extent that we would not be permitted under Cypriot law to declare and pay dividends.

We may need to raise additional funds to finance our future capital needs, which may dilute the value of our outstanding ADSs or prevent us from growing our business.

        We may need to raise additional funds to finance our existing and future capital needs, including developing new services and technologies, and to fund ongoing operating expenses. If we raise additional funds through the sale of equity securities, these transactions may dilute the value of our outstanding ADSs. We may also decide to issue securities, including debt securities that have rights, preferences and privileges senior to our ADSs. Any debt financing would increase our level of indebtedness and could negatively affect our liquidity and restrict our operations. We also can provide no assurances that the funds we raise will be sufficient to finance our existing indebtedness. We may be unable to raise additional funds on terms favorable to us or at all. If financing is not available or is not available on acceptable terms, we may be unable to fund our future needs. This may prevent us from

21

Table of Contents

increasing our market share, capitalizing on new business opportunities or remaining competitive in our industry.

Changes in accounting standards or inaccurate estimates or assumptions in the application of accounting policies could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

        Our accounting policies and methods are fundamental to how we record and report our financial condition and results of operations. Future changes in accounting standards, pronouncements or interpretations could require us to change our policies and procedures. The materiality of such changes is difficult to predict, and such changes could materially impact how we record and report our financial condition and results of operations. For example, we adopted IFRS 16, a standard that introduced a single, on-balance sheet accounting model for lessees, at January 1, 2019, using the modified retrospective approach. Under this transition method, our comparative financial information for the year ended December 31, 2018 is not restated. See Note 4 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report. In addition, some accounting policies require the use of estimates and assumptions that may affect the reported value of our assets or liabilities and results of operations and are critical because they require management to make difficult, subjective and complex judgments about matters that are inherently uncertain. If those assumptions, estimates or judgments were incorrectly made, we could be required to correct and restate prior period financial statements, and there can be no assurances that we will make the correct judgments in the future, should any new standards be issued. Accounting standard-setters and those who interpret the accounting standards may also amend or even reverse their previous interpretations or positions on how various standards should be applied. Any of these changes are difficult to predict and can materially impact how we record and report our financial condition and results of operations, which could have a significant impact on our future financial statements.

We may default on our exchange bonds.

        On December 14, 2020, Headhunter LLC completed the placement of 6.45% 4 billion of 001P-01R series interest-bearing non-convertible non-documentary callable exchange bonds with a maturity up to 1,092 days ("Bonds"). The Bonds will pay interest quarterly and are due in December 2023. This was the first ruble bond offering by Headhunter LLC which utilized the 20 billion unsecured indefinite term bond program registered on October 14, 2020 with the Moscow Exchange. As of the date of this Annual Report, local rating agency ExpertRA assigned HeadHunter Group PLC and the Bonds the "ruAA" credit rating with a stable outlook. The Bonds are secured by an irrevocable offer of Headhunter Group PLC and if we violate certain covenants of the issuer or the offeror we shall buy out the Bonds on the demand of the investors, which could negatively impact our liquidity and/or cash flow.

We may not be able to successfully integrate Zarplata.ru.

        On December 25, 2020, we completed the acquisition of 100% of the issued charter capital of Zarplata.ru ("Zarplata.ru Acquisition") from Hearst Shkulev Digital Regional Network B.V. under the agreement for the sale and purchase dated November 24, 2020 ("Zarplata.ru Purchase Agreement"). While the acquisition was made after extensive due diligence and based on a detailed integration plan, there can be no assurance that such due diligence was sufficient to uncover all material issues and the integration plan includes all necessary steps to achieve synergies and economic benefits. Expected revenue and cost synergies, operational efficiencies, business growth and other benefits may not materialize because assumptions upon which we determined to proceed with the Zarplata.ru Acquisition might be incorrect or the economic environment or competition landscape may have changed since the decision date.

22

Table of Contents

The Zarplata.ru Purchase Agreement may be invalidated by the FAS should we fail to fulfill its related prescription.

        On November 23, 2020, the FAS approved the Zarplata.ru Acquisition and simultaneously issued a prescription requiring us to amend certain provisions of our terms and conditions of API service use. While we believe that the required amendments are of a technical nature, and we are working closely with the FAS to ensure that these amendments are reflected in a way satisfactory to the FAS, should we fail to satisfactorily fulfill the prescription, the Zarplata.ru Purchase Agreement may be invalidated by a court order initiated by the FAS, which would require us to transfer 100% of the participation interest in Zarplata.ru back to Hearst Shkulev Digital Regional Network B.V.

Risks Relating to the Russian Federation and Other Markets in which We Operate

Investing in securities of issuers in emerging markets, such as the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries, generally involves a higher degree of risk than investments in securities of issuers from more developed countries and carries risks that are not typically associated with investing in more mature markets.

        Emerging markets such as the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other CIS countries are subject to greater risks than more developed markets, including significant legal, economic, tax and political risks. Investors in emerging markets should be aware that these markets are subject to greater risk and should note that emerging economies such as the economies of the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Belarus and other CIS countries are subject to rapid change and that the information set out herein may become outdated relatively quickly.

        Financial or economic crises, whether global or limited to a single large emerging market country, tend to adversely affect prices in equity markets of most or all emerging market countries as investors move their money to more stable, developed markets. Over the past few years, the Russian equity markets have been highly volatile, principally due to the impact of the global economic slowdown resulting from various factors, including the European sovereign debt crisis, the slowdown in Chinese economic growth and the dramatic fall in oil prices, as well as the deteriorating conditions of the Russian economy. As has happened in the past, financial problems such as significant ruble depreciation, capital outflows and a deterioration in other leading economic indicators or an increase in the perceived risks associated with investing in emerging economies due to, inter alia, geopolitical disputes such as the crisis in Ukraine and imposition of certain trade and economic sanctions in connection therewith, could dampen foreign investment in Russia and adversely affect the Russian economy. In addition, during such times, businesses that operate in emerging markets can face severe liquidity constraints as funding sources are withdrawn. Furthermore, in doing business in various countries of the CIS, we face risks similar to (and sometimes more significant than) those that we face in Russia. As we operate in emerging markets throughout the world, we may be exposed to any one or a combination of these risks, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Political risks could adversely affect the value of investments in the Russian Federation.

        While the political situation in the Russian Federation has been relatively stable since 2000, future policy and regulation may be less predictable than in less volatile markets. Any future political instability could result in a worsening overall economic situation, including capital flight and a slowdown of investment and business activity. In addition, any change in the Russian Government or its programs or lack of consensus between the Russian President, the Prime Minister, the Russian Government, the Parliament and powerful political, social, religious, regional, economic or ethnic groups could lead to political instability and a deterioration in Russia's investment climate that might limit our ability to obtain financing in the international capital markets, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. On July 4,

23

Table of Contents

2020, the Law of the Russian Federation on Amendment to the Constitution of the Russian Federation came into force, which implemented a number of constitutional reforms aimed at altering the balance of power between the legislative, executive and judicial branches and introducing certain other changes to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. These amendments, among other things, prioritize the Constitution of the Russian Federation over international treaties and the decisions of international bodies, strengthen the Russian State Council as an advisory board to the Russian President and grant the Russian Federal Council with authority to terminate the powers of the judges of the Constitutional Court of Russia upon the recommendation of the Russian President. These amendments may have a significant impact on the Russian political landscape and regulatory environment and lead to other changes that are currently difficult to predict.

        According to some commentators, politically motivated actions, including claims brought by the Russian authorities and state-owned companies against several major Russian companies, as well as cases of confiscation or renationalization of assets, have called into question the security and enforceability of property and contractual rights, progress of the free market and political reforms, the independence of the judiciary and the certainty of legislation. This has, in turn, resulted in significant fluctuations in the market price of Russian securities and had a negative impact on foreign investments in the Russian economy, over and above the general market turmoil recently. Any similar actions by the Russian authorities which result in a further negative effect on investor confidence in Russia's business and legal environment could have a further material adverse effect on the Russian securities market and prices of Russian securities or securities issued or backed by Russian entities, including the shares.

        Russia is a federative state consisting of 85 constituent entities, or "subjects." The Russian Constitution reserves some governmental powers for the Russian Government, some for the subjects and some for areas of joint competence. In addition, eight "federal districts" (federal'nye okruga), which are overseen by a plenipotentiary representative of the President, supplement the country's federal system. The delineation of authority among and within the subjects is, in many instances, unclear and contested, particularly with respect to the division of tax revenues and authority over regulatory matters. Subjects have enacted conflicting laws in areas such as privatization, land ownership and licensing. For these reasons, the Russian political system is vulnerable to tension and conflict between federal, subject and local authorities. This tension creates uncertainties in the operating environment in Russia, which may prevent businesses from carrying out their strategy effectively.

        In addition, ethnic, religious, historical and other divisions have on occasion given rise to tensions and, in certain cases, military conflict. Moreover, various acts of terrorism have been committed within the Russian Federation. The risks associated with these events or potential events could materially and adversely affect the investment environment and overall consumer and entrepreneurial confidence in the Russian Federation, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Deterioration of Russia's relations with other countries could negatively affect the Russian economy and those of the nearby regions.

        Over the past several years, Russia has been involved in conflicts, both economic and military, involving other countries. On several occasions, this has resulted in the deterioration of Russia's relations with other members of the international community, including the United States and various countries in Europe. Many of these jurisdictions are home to financial institutions and corporations that are significant investors in Russia and whose investment strategies and decisions may be affected by such conflicts and by worsening relations between Russia and its immediate neighbors.

        For example, relations between Ukraine and Russia, as well as Georgia and Russia, have recently been strained over a variety of issues. In September 2015, following a formal request from the Syrian

24

Table of Contents

government, the Russian Federal Council approved the use of Russian forces in Syria. Operations in Syria commenced in late September 2015. In December 2017, the Russian President ordered the partial removal of operations in Syria, but the Russian military contingent is still involved in operations in Syria. Furthermore, in November 2015, the Turkish Air Force shot down a Russian strike aircraft over Syria that resulted in tensions between Russia and Turkey, and led to the imposition of a wide range of sanctions by Russia against Turkey, which were then partially removed in the second half of 2016 and in 2017.

        In January 2018, pursuant to the Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act of 2017, the U.S. administration presented the U.S. Congress with a report on senior Russian political figures, "oligarchs" and "parastatal" entities. While the identification of any individuals in the report does not automatically lead to the imposition of new sanctions and it is not possible to predict whether any such identification could have a material adverse effect on the Russian economy or our business. Neither our directors nor senior management are included in the report.

        In March 2018, more than 140 Russian diplomats were expelled worldwide, and Russia in turn announced the expulsion of 60 American diplomats and the closure of the United States consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia. On April 6, 2018, the United States imposed new sanctions that targeted a number of Russian state officials and prominent Russian businessmen and their businesses. In August 2018, the U.S. Department of State imposed new sanctions on Russia under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (the "CBW Act"). On November 25, 2018, Ukrainian Navy vessels attempted to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov and were captured by the Russian Federal Security Service in the Kerch Straight, leading to further tensions between Russia and Ukraine. In December 2018, the United States expanded sanctions by designating 15 members of the Russian military intelligence organization, GRU, for their involvement in a wide range of activities, including attempting to interfere with the 2016 U.S. elections. In August 2019, following Russia's alleged failure to meet certain conditions under the CBW Act, the U.S. Department of State imposed additional sanctions against Russia, relating to Russian sovereign debt, multilateral lending and export restrictions for dual-use technologies that can be used for chemical and biological warfare. Moreover, several pieces of proposed legislation directed at increasing U.S. sanctions against Russia have been introduced in the U.S. Congress for consideration. The proposed legislation, if enacted, could affect, among other things, Russian sovereign debt, Russian energy projects and the Russian energy and financial sectors. Though it is currently uncertain whether or when any of this proposed legislation will be signed into law, such legislation and the potential sanctions imposed pursuant to such legislation may have an adverse impact on the Russian economy in general and thus may negatively affect our operations.

        On January 1, 2021, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (the "Defense Budget 2021") and the Protecting Europe's Energy Security Clarification Act of 2020 (the "PEESCA") as part of the Defense Budget 2021 were enacted into law when the U.S. Congress overrode the U.S. President's veto of the legislation. The Defense Budget 2021 and PEESCA mandate the imposition of sanctions on persons providing vessels for pipe-laying activities for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 and the TurkStream gas export pipelines, persons who facilitate providing those vessels, and persons who provide underwriting, insurance or reinsurance services for those vessels, various technology upgrades, or tethering of those vessels, or provide testing, inspections or certifications for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

        In recent years, relations between Russia, the United States, certain EU members and the United Kingdom have been strained due to a number of issues, including geopolitical confrontations, economic interests and trade wars, as well as internal political and social events, and there can be no assurance that the governments of the United States, EU and United Kingdom or other countries will not impose further sanctions against Russia or specific individuals, entities or economy sectors. The emergence of new or escalated tensions between Russia and other countries, including any escalation of the conflict

25

Table of Contents

or renewed fighting, or the imposition of international trade and economic sanctions in response to these tensions, could negatively affect the economies in the regions where we are present, including the Russian economy. This, in turn, may result in a general lack of confidence among international investors in the region's economic and political stability and in Russian investments generally. Such lack of confidence may result in reduced liquidity, trading volatility and significant declines in the price of listed securities of companies with significant operations in Russia, including our shares, and in our inability to raise debt or equity capital in the international capital markets, which may affect our ability to achieve the level of growth to which we aspire. Additionally, the relationship between the U.S. and Russia is subject to fluctuation and periodic tension. Changes in political conditions in Russia and changes in the state of Russian-U.S. relations are difficult to predict and could adversely affect our operations or cause our company to become less attractive for U.S. investors.

        Political and governmental instability in Russia and other countries of our operations could materially adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, results of operations and the value of our ADSs.

Economic instability in the countries where we operate could adversely affect our business.

        Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the economies of Russia and other CIS countries where we operate have experienced periods of considerable instability and have been subject to abrupt downturns. From 2000 until the first half of 2008, Russia experienced rapid growth in its gross domestic product, higher tax collections and increased stability of the ruble, providing some degree of economic soundness. However, the Russian economy was adversely affected by the global economic crisis that began in the second half of 2008, which manifested itself through extreme volatility in debt and equity markets, reductions in foreign investment, sharp decreases in GDP and rise of unemployment around the world. While the situation globally has stabilized since to a certain extent, the Russian economy began to experience a new slowdown in 2013. The conditions and outlook for the Russian economy deteriorated significantly during 2014 and continued to worsen in 2015 and 2016. Russia's GDP expanded by 1.3% in 2019, however, Russia's GDP contracted by 3.1% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak and related restrictions introduced by the Russian Government. As Russia produces and exports large quantities of crude oil, natural and metal products and other commodities, its economy is particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in the prices of commodities on the global market. In particular, the Brent Crude oil price suffered a significant decrease during 2014 and 2015. The commodity's price declined from $112.36 per barrel on June 30, 2014 to $37.28 per barrel on December 31, 2015. During 2016 and 2017, the Brent Crude oil price continued to be volatile with $56.82 per barrel on December 31, 2016, $66.87 per barrel on December 29, 2017, $53.80 per barrel on December 31, 2018, and $66.00 per barrel on December 31, 2019. Further, after OPEC and Russia failed to agree recent production cuts, Saudi Arabia sharply cut its prices, causing the Brent Crude oil price to reach a low of $31.02 per barrel on March 9, 2020. This drop in oil prices caused volatility in the global financial markets and caused the ruble to fall in value. In the first quarter of 2021, oil prices rebounded to levels above $60.00 per barrel.

        Any financial downturn, as well as any future economic downturns or slow turns in Russia or the other CIS countries where we operate could lead to decreased demand for our services, decreased revenue and negatively affect our liquidity and ability to obtain debt financing, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Inflation may increase our costs and exert downward pressure on our operating margins.

        The Russian economy and certain other CIS economies in which we operate have generally been characterized by high rates of inflation in recent years. According to the Russian Federal State Statistics Service ("Rosstat"), the consumer price index in Russia stood at 5.4%, 2.5%, 4.3%, 3.0% and 4.9% in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Because substantially all of our operations are in Russia

26

Table of Contents

and the CIS, our costs are sensitive to increases in prices in the region. As a result, high rates of inflation increase our costs, these increases in cost could negatively impact our operating margin, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Social instability could increase support for renewed centralized authority, nationalism or violence and could materially adversely affect our operations.

        A decrease in the price of oil, as well as increased unemployment rates, the failure of the government and many private enterprises to pay full salaries on a regular basis and the failure of salaries and benefits generally to keep pace with the rapidly increasing cost of living have led in the past, and could lead in the future, to labor and social unrest in the markets in which we operate. Labor and social unrest may have political, social and economic consequences, such as increased support for a renewal of centralized authority; increased nationalism, including restrictions on foreign involvement in the economies of the countries where we have operations; and increased violence. An occurrence of any of the foregoing events could restrict our operations and lead to the loss of revenue, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Crime and corruption could disrupt our ability to conduct our business and thus, materially adversely affect our operations.

        The political and economic changes in recent years in the countries where we operate have resulted in significant changes in authority. In addition, the local and international press have reported high levels of corruption, including the bribing of officials for the purpose of initiating investigations by government agencies. Press reports have also described instances in which government officials engaged in selective investigations and prosecutions to further the commercial interests of certain government officials or certain companies or individuals. Additionally, some members of the media in the countries in which we operate regularly publish disparaging articles in return for payment. The depredations of organized or other crime, demands of corrupt officials or claims that we have been involved in official corruption could result in negative publicity, disrupt our ability to conduct our business, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Applicable legislation imposes restrictions and requirements on us with respect to processing of certain types of personal and other data and data retention which may impose additional obligations on us, limit our flexibility, or harm our reputation with users.

        Processing of user data by any person in Russia and other countries is subject to certain requirements and restrictions. If these requirements and restrictions are amended, interpreted or applied in a manner not consistent with current practice, we could face fines or orders requiring that we change our operating practices, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. In extreme cases, the relevant data protection authorities may block access to our websites.

        In Russia, in order to process an individual's personal data, we must obtain his or her written or e-consent and use encryption and other technical means to protect his or her personal data. We do not collect or perform any operations on our users' personal data, except when such collection or processing is in accordance with our terms of services and privacy policies which are available on our websites. Subject to several exemptions, processors of personal data must notify the appropriate Russian authority, we are included into the register of such processors.

27

Table of Contents

        According to the Federal Law No. 242-FZ "On Introduction of Changes to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation in Connection with Usage of Information Technologies in the Field of Healthcare" dated July 29, 2017 (the "Federal Law No. 242"), data operators (data controllers) of personal data are obliged to record, systematize, accumulate, store, update, modify and retrieve Russian citizens' personal data using databases located only within Russia (subject to a limited number of exceptions), as well as to provide the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media of Russia ("Roskomnadzor") with the information on location of databases containing all citizens' personal data.

        Federal Law No. 242 may cause restrictions on the provision of information services and penalties which may be imposed on data operators (data controllers) for failure to comply with its requirements (some of which may be subject to broad interpretation).

        Although we believe we are in compliance with this legislation, compliance with the requirements provided may be practically difficult, require significant efforts and resources, lead to legal liability in other jurisdictions and limit functionality of our services. Compliance with these requirements may also limit our ability to compete with other companies located in other jurisdictions that do not require mandatory local storage of personal data relating to their users. However, any non-compliance with this requirement could lead to legal liability and potentially to restriction of the availability of the service in Russia. For example, in 2016, a Russian court ordered the blocking of access to a popular professional social networking website for violation of data protection legislation.

        In July 2019, Russian legislators proposed a draft law (the "Draft Law on Informational Resources") to regulate the ownership and operation of "informational resources significant for the development of Russian information and communication infrastructure and personal data processing technologies" (the significant information resources, or "SIRs"). The Draft Law on Informational Resources proposed introducing restrictions in relation to foreign ownership in Russian companies owners of internet resources (such as webpages, websites, information systems or software) that enable the owner to collect the personal data of users in Russia. The restrictions proposed by the Draft Law on Informational Resources, as drafted, should have only applied to information resources that have been recognized as SIRs by a decision of the Governmental Commission of the Russian Federation. In February 2020, the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications recommended further developing the Draft Law on Informational Resources including clarifying the criteria for recognition as a SIR and re-considering the thresholds of foreign ownership in SIRs. Though there have been no developments on the Draft Law on Informational Resources since then, we cannot assure you that it would not be finally enacted, or that other restrictions on foreign ownership in Russian informational resources will not be proposed, including restrictions on foreign investors of any type, including passive investors.

        If the Draft Law on Informational Resources or similar legislation or any other restrictions on foreign ownership are adopted and applicable to us, we may be required to restructure or otherwise adapt our operations or corporate structure to comply with such restrictions, and such restrictions may have a material adverse effect on our share price.

        On February 13, 2020, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation announced that it commenced working on draft amendments to the Federal Law No. 149-FZ "On Information, Information Technology and Data Protection" dated July 27, 2006 (the "Law on Information"), which is aimed at unifying the approach to big data processing. As of the date of this Annual Report, there are a number of other initiatives relating to the big data processing that are being discussed by the Russian authorities. Currently, it is unclear what impact the proposed initiatives may have on big data processing and when the announced draft law or other regulations may be adopted, and as a result, it is difficult for us to estimate the potential impact of this law on our business.

28

Table of Contents

        Due to the nature of the services we offer and the fact that we have a presence in a number of countries, we may also be subject to data protection laws of other jurisdictions, especially laws regulating the cross-border transfer of personal data (including, but not limited to the GDPR), which may require significant compliance efforts and could result in liability for violations in other jurisdictions. As our business grows, we may also encounter increased pressure from foreign state authorities with respect to production of information related to users in circumvention of the international legal framework regulating the provision of such information. Any non-compliance with such requests may lead to liability, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Weaknesses relating to the legal system and legislation in the countries where we operate create an uncertain environment for investment and business activity, which could have a material adverse effect on the value of our shares.

        Each of the countries in which we operate is still developing the legal framework required to support the market economy. The following risks relating to these legal systems create uncertainties with respect to the legal and business decisions that we make, many of which do not exist in countries with more developed market economies:

•

inconsistencies between and among the constitution, federal and regional laws and subordinate legislation (presidential decrees and governmental, ministerial and local orders, decisions and resolutions) and other acts;



•

the lack of judicial and administrative guidance on interpreting certain legislation as well as conflicting interpretations of supreme general jurisdiction and arbitrazh courts;



•

the relative inexperience of judges and courts in interpreting certain aspects of legislation;



•

the lack of an independent judiciary;



•

a high degree of discretion on the part of governmental authorities, which could result in arbitrary actions such as suspension or termination of our licenses;



•

the possibility of rapid change in the current legislation, which could create ambiguities in interpretation and potential non-compliance; and



•

poorly developed bankruptcy and liquidation procedures and court practice that create possibilities of abuse.

        The recent nature of much of the legislation in the CIS countries, the lack of consensus about the scope, content and pace of economic and political reform and the rapid evolution of these legal systems in ways that may not always coincide with market developments place the enforceability and underlying constitutionality of laws in doubt and result in ambiguities, inconsistencies and anomalies. In addition, legislation in these countries often contemplates implementing regulations that have not yet been promulgated, leaving substantial gaps in the regulatory infrastructure. Any of these weaknesses could affect our ability to enforce our rights under our licenses and contracts, or to defend ourselves against claims by others. Moreover, it is possible that regulators, judicial authorities or third parties may challenge our internal procedures and bylaws, as well as our compliance with applicable laws, decrees and regulations.

Selective or arbitrary government action could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

        Governmental authorities in the countries where we operate have a high degree of discretion and, at times, act selectively or arbitrarily, without hearing or prior notice, and sometimes in a manner that is inconsistent with legislation or influenced by political or commercial considerations.

29

Table of Contents

        Selective or arbitrary governmental actions have reportedly included the denial or withdrawal of licenses, sudden and unexpected tax audits and claims, criminal prosecutions and civil actions. Federal and local government entities have also used ordinary defects in matters surrounding share issuances and registration as pretexts for court claims and other demands to invalidate such issuances and registrations or to void transactions. Moreover, the government also has the power in certain circumstances, by regulation or government acts, to interfere with the performance of, nullify or terminate contracts.

        In addition, the Russian tax authorities have aggressively brought tax evasion claims relating to Russian companies' use of tax-optimization schemes, and press reports have speculated that these enforcement actions have been selective. Selective or arbitrary government action could be directed at us, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Russian companies can be forced into liquidation on the basis of formal non-compliance with certain applicable legal requirements.

        Certain provisions of Russian law may allow government authorities to seek a court order for the liquidation of a Russian legal entity on the basis of its formal non-compliance with certain requirements during formation, reorganization or during its operation. For example, under Russian corporate law, if the net assets of a Russian joint stock company calculated on the basis of Russian accounting standards are lower than its charter capital as at the end of its third or any subsequent financial year, the company must either decrease its charter capital or be placed in liquidation. If the company fails to comply with these requirements, governmental or local authorities can seek the involuntary liquidation of such company in court, and the company's creditors will have the right to accelerate their claims or demand early performance of the company's obligations as well as demand compensation of any damages.

        The existence of negative assets may not accurately reflect the actual ability to pay debts as they fall due. Many Russian companies have negative net assets due to very low historical asset values reflected on their Russian accounting standards balance sheets; however, their solvency is not otherwise adversely affected by such negative net assets. Courts have, on rare occasions, ordered the involuntary liquidation of a company for having net assets less than the minimum charter capital required by law, even if the company had continued to fulfill its obligations and had net assets in excess of the minimum charter capital at the time of liquidation.

        There have also been cases in the past in which formal deficiencies in the establishment process of a Russian legal entity or non-compliance with provisions of Russian law have been used as a basis to seek the liquidation of a legal entity. Weaknesses in the Russian legal system create an uncertain legal environment, which makes the decisions of a Russian court or a governmental authority difficult, if not impossible, to predict. If involuntary liquidation were to occur, such liquidation could lead to significant negative consequences to our business and financial condition.

Failure to comply with existing laws and regulations or to obtain all approvals, authorizations and permits, or the findings of government inspections or increased governmental regulation of our operations, could result in a disruption in our business and substantial additional compliance costs and sanctions.

        Our operations and properties are subject to regulation by various government entities and agencies in connection with obtaining and renewing various licenses, approvals, authorizations and permits, as well as with ongoing compliance with existing laws, regulations and standards. Regulatory authorities exercise considerable discretion in matters of enforcement and interpretation of applicable laws, regulations and standards, the issuance and renewal of licenses, approvals, authorizations and permits and in monitoring licensees' compliance with the terms thereof. Russian authorities have the

30

Table of Contents

right to, and frequently do, conduct periodic inspections of our operations and properties throughout the year. Any such future inspections may conclude that we or our subsidiaries have violated laws, decrees or regulations, and we may be unable to refute such conclusions or remedy the violations.

        Our failure to comply with existing laws and regulations of the countries where we operate or to obtain all approvals, authorizations and permits or the findings of government inspections including the State Labor Inspection Service may result in the imposition of fines or penalties or more severe sanctions including the suspension, amendment or termination of our licenses, approvals, authorizations and permits, or requirements that we cease certain of our business activities, or criminal and administrative penalties applicable to our officers. Moreover, an agreement or transaction entered into in violation of law may be invalidated and/or unwound by a court decision. Any such decisions, requirements or sanctions, or any increase in governmental regulation of our operations, could result in a disruption of our business and substantial additional compliance costs, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. See also "—The FAS's determination that we hold a dominant position in the market where we operate, together with SuperJob and RDV-Soft (a company that operates the Rabota.ru recruiting website), and that we abused this dominant position through restricting access to our CV database for Stafori LLC's "Robot Vera" software may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations."

        In addition, the Federal Law No. 374-FZ dated July 6, 2016, also known as the "Yarovaya Law" (named after the Russian senator who initiated this law) (the "Yarovaya Law") amending, among others, the Law on Information, requires arrangers of information distribution by means of internet (the "arranger") to store certain data for a period of one year. The norm of the law relating to the storage of messages content entered into force on July 1, 2018, see Item 4. "Information on the Company, B. Business Overview—Regulation—Privacy and Personal Data Protection Regulation." In December 2020, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation suggested delaying implementation of certain requirements on data storage for one year in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and related worsening in economic conditions. We believe that this regulation will not cause us to incur substantial additional costs. However, the range of penalties for non-compliance with the Yarovaya Law is not entirely clear and may potentially entail other types of administrative penalties in addition to fines. If any of these were material or we were found to be in non-compliance, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        The Sovereign Internet Law, which predominantly entered into force in November 2019, imposes a number of obligations on entities having autonomous system numbers (these numbers are defined as unique identifiers of the autonomous systems, "ASN," which in turn, are systems of IP-networks and routers that adhere to a common routing policy and to which several IP-addresses can be assigned (the "Internet Providers")). The Internet Providers are required to, among other things, install certain software and hardware to determine IP addresses, take part in practical trainings arranged by the Russian authorities and provide necessary assistance to the Russian investigative authorities. The Russian authorities have adopted certain implementing legislation, but other implementing legislation has yet to be developed. See also "—Any disruption in internet access, telecommunications networks or our technology platform may cause slow response times or otherwise impair our users' experience, which may in turn reduce user traffic to our website and significantly harm our business, financial condition and operating results." If we were found to be in non-compliance with the requirements of the Sovereign Internet Law, our business prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be affected.

31

Table of Contents

According to Russian legislation, shareholders and participants of Russian companies have an opportunity to demand either liquidation of a company in a judicial proceeding or exclusion of other shareholders or participants (except for public joint stock companies) from the company.

        According to the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation which came into effect on September 1, 2014, shareholders and participants of Russian companies have certain rights, including the following, which can be enforced through court order:

•

to demand the liquidation of a company in case of failure to achieve targets for which it was created, including a case when an operation of a company becomes impossible or is substantially hampered; and



•

to demand exclusion of a shareholder or participant (except for public joint stock companies) whose actions or inactivity either cause significant harm to or hamper the company's operations.

        In this regard, considering the lack of practice in applying these regulations, we cannot rule out the possibility of having such claims filed against us. Should such claims be brought, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Shareholder liability under Russian corporate law could cause us to become liable for the obligations of our subsidiaries.

        Russian law generally provides that shareholders in a Russian joint-stock company or participants in a limited liability company are not liable for that company's obligations and risk only the loss of their investment. This may not be the case, however, when one legal entity is capable of determining decisions made by another entity. The legal entity capable of determining such decisions is called the effective parent entity (osnovnoye obshchestvo). The legal entity whose decisions are capable of being so determined is called the effective subsidiary entity (docherneye obshchestvo). The effective parent bears joint and several liability for transactions concluded by the effective subsidiary in carrying out business decisions if:

•

the effective parent gives binding directions to the effective subsidiary or provides consent to the relevant transactions entered into by the subsidiary; and



•

the right of the effective parent to give binding instructions is based on its share in the subsidiary's capital, or is set out in a contract between such entities or stems from other circumstances.

        In addition, under Russian law, an effective parent is secondarily liable for an effective subsidiary's debts if an effective subsidiary becomes insolvent or bankrupt as a result of the action of an effective parent. In these instances, the other shareholders of the effective subsidiary may claim compensation for the effective subsidiary's losses from the effective parent that causes the effective subsidiary to take action or fail to take action knowing that such action or failure to take action would result in losses. We could be found to be the effective parent of our subsidiaries, in which case we would become liable for their debts, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

The Russian banking system remains volatile and undercapitalized, the number of creditworthy banks in Russia is limited and another banking crisis could place severe liquidity constraints on our business.

        Russia's banking and other financial systems are less developed or regulated as compared to other countries, and Russian legislation relating to banks and bank accounts is subject to varying interpretations and inconsistent application. In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in lending by Russian banks, which has been accompanied by a deterioration in the credit quality of the borrowers. In addition, a robust domestic corporate debt market is leading Russian banks (including

32

Table of Contents

the banks with which we conduct banking transactions) to hold increasingly large amounts of Russian corporate ruble bonds in their portfolios, which is further deteriorating the risk profile of Russian bank assets. Serious deficiencies in the Russian banking sector, combined with a deterioration in the credit portfolios of Russian banks, may result in the banking sector suffering large losses during market downturns or economic slowdowns, including due to Russian corporate defaults that may occur during any such market downturn or economic slowdown, and thus becoming unable to lend or fulfill their obligations, including to their corporate depositors. In addition, the Central Bank of Russia has a practice of revoking from time to time the licenses of certain Russian banks, which resulted in market rumors about additional bank closures and many depositors withdrawing their savings. Recently a number of banks and credit institutions have lost their licenses due to deficiency of capital and failure to meet the Central Bank of Russia requirements. During a banking crisis, Russian companies may be subject to severe liquidity constraints due to the limited supply of domestic savings and the withdrawal of foreign funding sources that may occur during such a crisis.

        The recent disruptions in the global markets have generally led to reduced liquidity and increased cost of funding in Russia. Borrowers have generally experienced a reduction in available financing both in the inter-bank and short-term funding market, as well as in the longer term capital markets and bank finance instruments. The non-availability of funding to the banking sector in the Russian Federation has also negatively affected the anticipated growth rate of the Russian Federation. During the course of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015, the credit rating of the Russian Federation was placed for review and downgraded by each of Moody's, Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's several times. As of February 2021, Russia had a Baa3 sovereign credit rating from Moody's, BBB long-term sovereign rating from Fitch Ratings and BBB-/A-3 foreign currency sovereign credit rating with a stable outlook from Standard & Poor's.

        During turbulence in the Russian financial markets and banking sector, the Russian state authorities have historically implemented measures intended to support the liquidity and solvency of Russian banks and to significantly increase the availability of credit to businesses, which have been seen as critical for restoring investor confidence and for supporting the Russian economy. In addition to the recent instability, there is still reduced liquidity and capitalization in the Russian banking sector, and there can be no assurance that more severe liquidity problems will not occur in the future, or that the Russian Government will continue or be able to implement state support measures to support the Russian banking sector, in particular, in case of any potential liquidity constraints or limitations on access to the international capital markets by Russian financial institutions.

A listing on Moscow Exchange ("MOEX") could impose additional administrative burdens on us and decrease the liquidity of trading in the ADSs on The Nasdaq Global Select Market ("Nasdaq").

        On September 25, 2020, we obtained the approval of MOEX in relation to the listing and admission of the ADSs to trading on MOEX under the symbol "HHRU." No assurance can be given that we will be able to maintain such listing. Any such listing may impose additional administrative burdens on us and may result in a reduction of the liquidity of trading in the ADSs on Nasdaq.

        In addition, we and our main operating subsidiary Headhunter LLC as issuers of publicly traded securities are subject to the Federal law No. 224-FZ dated July 27, 2010 "On Counteracting the Abuse of Inside Information and Market Manipulation and Amendment of Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" (the "Insider Dealing Law"). According to the Insider Dealing Law, issuers have an obligation to maintain the internal list of inside information, disclose their insiders and comply with certain other requirements. Any violation of the Insider Dealing Law could result in the imposition of certain civil, administrative and other sanctions on us and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.

33

Table of Contents

The FAS's determination that we hold a dominant position in the market where we operate, together with SuperJob and RDV-Soft (a company that operates the Rabota.ru recruiting website), and that we abused this dominant position through restricting access to our CV database for Stafori LLC's "Robot Vera" software may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

        The Russian Federal Law No. 135-FZ "On Protection of Competition" dated July 26, 2006, as amended (the "Competition Law"), establishes certain restrictions on activities of companies that occupy a dominant position in any markets of their operation. When determining market dominance, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (the "FAS") needs to identify and define the relevant market, in which the entity in question operates. There are numerous aspects to be taken into account when making this determination, including the interchangeability or substitutability of the products and/or services for the consumer, their pricing and intended use, and then calculate market shares of companies operating in this market. Different approaches may be applied in this respect by the FAS and market participants.

        In April 2019, after a complaint filed by Stafori LLC the FAS initiated an investigation in relation to us alleging a violation of antitrust legislation by restricting access to our CV database for Stafori LLC's "Robot Vera" software, which offers automated candidate search services. In December 2019, the FAS determined that Headhunter LLC, together with SuperJob and RDV-Soft, are currently occupying a collective dominant position in the market of internet-based services related to ensuring information coordination between employees, employers and staffing agencies in Russia, and that its actions prohibiting the use of third-party software lead to restriction of competition on the adjacent product markets (app stores). Headhunter LLC was found to have violated Russian antitrust legislation by abusing its collective dominant market position.

        On January 23, 2020, the FAS issued its final decision, which concluded that our actions did not limit overall competition in Russia's online recruitment market. At the same time, the FAS determined that we infringed on Stafori's interests by creating impediments on Stafori's ability to access the market of internet-based services for ensuring information coordination between employees, employers and staffing agencies in Russia and ordered us to consider their applications for registration of their products on our system, if Stafori submits such applications. On July 13, 2020 the FAS determined a final fine for violation of antitrust laws that we are required to pay and defined it to be RUB 737 500. The FAS will not issue any further rulings or orders in connection with this investigation. We contested judicially the FAS decision on April 22, 2020, and the imposed fine on July 31, 2020. After several court meetings of technical nature, the court scheduled a consideration on the merits on April 8, 2021. We believe that the mitigation measures prescribed by the FAS will not have a significant impact on our operations, and we intend to maintain our commitment to protecting personal data in the market. In addition, Stafori LLC may choose to claim for damages incurred as a result of infringement of its rights; however, Stafori LLC will have to prove the existence of such damages and that such infringement caused the damages. See also "—Selective or arbitrary government action could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects" and Item 8. "Financial Information, A. Consolidated Statements and Other Financial Information."

        The conclusion by the FAS that we hold a collective dominant position in one or more of the markets in which we operate could result in heightened scrutiny of our business and industry, and/or limit our ability to complete future acquisitions. In addition, the FAS could require that we pre-clear with them any antitrust compliance policies and programs or substantial changes to our standard agreements with merchants and agents, as well as maintain our current agreements with business partners. Russian legislation prohibits persons holding a dominant position from setting monopolistically high or low prices. We could be prohibited from setting different prices to the same products and services and could be ordered to pre-agree with the FAS our tariffs and pricing policies or any changes thereto. In addition, if we were to decline to conclude a contract with a third party this could, in certain circumstances, be regarded as abuse of a dominant market position. Any abuse of a

34

Table of Contents

dominant market position could lead to administrative penalties and the imposition of fines linked to our revenue.

        Russian legislation provides that the prohibition on the abuse of a dominant market position does not apply to the execution of exclusive rights in relation to intellectual property. There have been multiple discussions of proposed changes to the Russian antimonopoly legislation, including an initiative that would rescind intellectual property immunity; however, no such draft legislation to that effect has been proposed to the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament. Once there is more clarity in connection with this initiative and there is a more developed draft of any such legislation, we will be better placed to identify and assess the potential impacts, if any, on us and our business.

We may be subject to existing or new advertising legislation that could restrict the types and relevance of the ads we serve, which would result in a loss of advertisers and therefore a reduction in our revenue.

        Russian law prohibits the sale and advertising of certain products and heavily regulates advertising of certain products and services. Ads for certain products and services, such as financial services, as well as ads aimed at minors and some others, must comply with specific rules and must in certain cases contain required disclaimers.

        Further amendments to legislation regulating advertising may impact our ability to provide some of our services or limit the type of advertising we may offer. The application of these laws to parties that merely serve or distribute ads and do not market or sell the product or service, however, can be unclear. Pursuant to our terms of service, we require that our advertisers have all required licenses or authorizations. If our advertisers do not comply with these requirements, and these laws were to be interpreted to apply to us, or if our ad serving system failed to include necessary disclaimers, we may be exposed to administrative fines or other sanctions, and may have to limit the types of advertisers we serve.

        The regulatory framework in Russia governing the use of behavioral targeting in online advertising is unclear. If new legislation were to be adopted, or current legislation were to be interpreted, to restrict the use of behavioral targeting in online advertising, our ability to enhance the targeting of our advertising could be significantly limited, which could result in a loss of advertisers or a reduction in the relevance of the ads we serve, which would reduce the number of clicks on the ads and therefore, reduce our revenue.

Risks Relating to Russian Taxation

Changes in Russian tax law could adversely affect our Russian operations.

        Generally, Russian taxes that we are subject to are substantial and include, inter alia: corporate income tax, value added tax, property tax, employment-related social security contributions; we are also subject to duties and liabilities of a tax agent in terms of withholding taxes with respect to some of our counterparties. Although the Russian tax climate and the quality of tax legislation have generally improved with the introduction of the Russian Tax Code, the possibility exists that the Russian Federation may impose arbitrary and/or onerous taxes and penalties in the future. The Russian Federation's tax collection system increases the likelihood of such events, and this could adversely affect our business.

        Russian tax laws are subject to frequent change and some of the sections of the Russian Tax Code are comparatively new and continue to be redrafted.

        Since 2014, several important rules have been introduced into the Russian Tax Code as a part of the Russian Government's policy focused on curtailing Russian businesses from using foreign companies mostly or only for tax reasons. These rules impose significant limitations on tax planning and aiming at allowing the Russian tax authorities to tax foreign income attributable to Russian

35

Table of Contents

businesses (known as "deoffshorization measures"). These rules include, in particular, (i) rules governing the taxation of "controlled foreign companies" (CFC rules) (without limitation of jurisdictions to which this definition applies which residents may fall under); (ii) rules determining the tax residence status of non-Russian legal entities (tax residence rules); (iii) rules defining the "beneficial ownership" (actual recipient of income) concept and (iv) taxation of capital gains derived from the sale of shares in "real estate rich" companies (with the value of assets deriving, directly or indirectly, from real estate located in the Russian Federation by more than 50%), all in effect since January 1, 2015; and (v) codified general anti-abuse rules (that base on the judicial concept of "unjustified tax benefit", defined by the Supreme Arbitration Court in 2006, and provide a few tests to support tax reduction or tax base deduction, including the "main purpose test"), in effect since August 18, 2017.

        Starting 2019, the standard VAT rate increased from 18% to 20%, and the VAT rate applied to e-services rendered by foreign providers increased from 15.25% to 16.67%. Starting 2021, income of Russian tax-resident individuals exceeding RUB 5 million per annum is subject to personal income tax at a rate of 15% instead of 13% previously used.

        In addition, in 2020 to 2021, new restrictions have been introduced into Russian tax law that effectively phase out certain tax benefits to non-Russian registered entities that voluntarily recognized themselves as Russian tax residents, such as our Company. In particular, a participation exemption regime, a tax benefit that many non-Russian registered entities have relied on in obtaining Russian tax residency on a voluntary basis, will no longer apply to dividend income of such entities starting 2024.

        These changing conditions create tax risks in the Russian Federation that are more significant than those typically found in jurisdictions with more developed tax systems; they have significant effect on us, complicate our tax planning and related business decisions and may expose us to additional tax and administrative risks, as well as extra costs that are necessary to secure compliance with these new rules. In addition, there can be no assurance that the current tax rates will not be increased and that new taxes will not be introduced.

        The interpretation and application of the Russian Tax Code generally and, in particular, the aforementioned new rules have often been unclear or unstable. Differing interpretations may exist both among and within government bodies at the federal, regional and local levels; in some instances, the Russian tax authorities take positions contrary to those set out in clarification letters issued by the Ministry of Finance in response to specific taxpayers' queries and apply new interpretations of tax laws retroactively. This increases the number of existing uncertainties and leads to inconsistent enforcement of the tax laws in practice. Furthermore, over recent years, the Russian tax authorities have shown a tendency to take more assertive positions in their interpretation of tax legislation, which has led to an increased number of material tax assessments issued by them as a result of tax audits of taxpayers. Taxpayers often have to resort to court proceedings to defend their position against the Russian tax authorities. In the absence of binding precedent or consistent court practice, rulings on tax matters by different courts regarding the same or similar circumstances may be inconsistent or contradictory. In practice, courts may deviate from the interpretations issued by the Russian tax authorities or the Ministry of Finance in a way that is unfavorable for the taxpayer.

        The Russian tax system is, therefore, impeded by the fact that, at times, it continues to be characterized by inconsistent judgment of the local tax authorities and the failure of the Russian tax authorities to address many of the existing problems. It is, therefore, possible that our transactions and activities that have not been challenged in the past may be challenged in the future, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects and the trading price of the ADSs.

36

Table of Contents

We are subject to tax audits by the Russian tax authorities, which may result in additional tax liabilities.

        Generally, tax returns, together with related documentation, are subject to audit by the tax authorities, which are authorized by Russian law to impose severe fines and penalties. As a rule, the tax authorities may audit tax periods within three years immediately preceding the year when the tax audit is initiated. Tax audits may be repeated (within the same general three-year limit) in a few specifically defined circumstances, such as the taxpayer's reorganization or liquidation, or upon the re-filing of a tax return (amended to decrease the tax payable), or if a tax audit is conducted by a higher-level tax authority as a measure of control over the activities of a lower-level tax authority. Therefore, previous tax audits may not preclude from subsequent tax claims relating to the audited period.

        The Russian Tax Code provides for a three-year statute of limitations for imposition of tax penalties; the statute of limitation extends however if the taxpayer obstructed the performance of the tax audit (such that it created an insurmountable obstacle for the performance and completion of the tax audit). However, the terms "obstructed" and "insurmountable obstacles" are not specifically defined in the Russian law; therefore, the tax authorities may interpret these terms broadly, effectively linking any difficulty experienced by them in the course of the tax audit with obstruction by the taxpayer and use that as a basis to seek additional tax adjustments and penalties beyond the three-year limitation term. Therefore, the statute of limitations is not entirely effective.

        Tax audits may result in additional costs if the tax authorities conclude that we did not satisfy our tax obligations in any given tax period. Such audits may also impose additional burdens on us by diverting the attention of management resources. The outcome of these audits could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, results of operations or the trading price of the ADSs.

Russian transfer pricing rules may adversely affect the business of our Russian operations, financial condition and results of operations.

        Transfer pricing legislation has been in force in the Russian Federation since 2012. The rules are technical, detailed and, to a certain extent, aligned with the international transfer pricing principles developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (the "OECD").

        Russian transfer pricing rules apply to "controlled transactions" that include transactions with related parties and certain types of cross-border transactions and oblige the taxpayers to notify the tax authority about "controlled transactions" and to keep specific documentation proving the conformance with the "arm's length principle." The rules have considerably increased the compliance burden on taxpayers compared to the previous regime, as currently taxpayers are obliged to prepare not only transfer pricing documentation but also notifications and reports.

        Starting from January 1, 2019, transactions between related parties are not treated as "controlled transactions," in case such related parties are the Russian tax residents and/or located in the Russian Federation, and apply the general corporate income tax rate.

        HeadHunter Group PLC changed its tax residence from Cyprus to the Russian Federation on June 19, 2019, and HeadHunter FSU Limited changed its tax residence from Cyprus to the Russian Federation on November 8, 2018. Consequently, transactions between the Russian companies in our group applying the general corporate income tax rate and transactions with HeadHunter Group PLC and HeadHunter FSU Limited shall not be treated as "controlled transactions."

        Although transfer pricing rules are supposed to be in line with the international transfer pricing principles developed by the OECD, there are certain significant differences with respect to how these principles are reflected in the local rules. Special transfer pricing rules apply to transactions with securities and derivatives. It is difficult to evaluate and assess beforehand the effect of transfer pricing rules on our business.

37

Table of Contents

        In addition, although pricing applied in "controlled transactions" shall be audited by the Federal Tax Service (by its central office), in observance of the transfer pricing methods, in practice, lower-level tax authorities often attempt to scrutinize pricing and other terms in transactions between related parties more broadly, based on the "unjustified tax benefit" concept.

        In accordance with the foregoing, due to uncertainties in the interpretation and application of Russian transfer pricing rules, no assurance can be given that the Russian tax authorities will not challenge our transaction prices and make adjustments that could affect our tax position unless we are able to confirm our use of arm's length prices, supported by appropriate transfer pricing documentation. The imposition of additional tax liabilities as a result of Russian transfer pricing rules may have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, results of operations or the trading price of the ADSs.

Russian thin capitalization rules and general interest deductibility rules allow different interpretations, which may affect our business.

        The Russian Tax Code provides for three main restrictions that limit the deductibility of expense for interest accruing on indebtedness: first, that a loan is obtained (indebtedness is incurred) with a proper economic reasoning (for a business purpose or justification); second, that the interest rate on controlled transactions is within established interest rate (safe-harbor) range; and third, the thin capitalization rules (that apply to "foreign controlled debt" (i.e., loans and other debt received by a Russian organization (i) from a foreign person (legal entity or individual) acknowledged as a related party for Russian transfer pricing purposes, if this foreign person directly or indirectly holds shares in the Russian organization's charter capital; (ii) from another person that is a related party of the aforementioned foreign person; or (iii) which are guaranteed or otherwise secured by any of the above mentioned persons. The ability to deduct interest is restricted to the extent that foreign controlled debt exceeds net assets by more than 3 times (12.5 for banks and leasing companies).

        Interest on excess debt is non-deductible and treated as a dividend subject to withholding tax. In the event the taxpayer has negative net assets, the whole amount of interest accrued on the controlled debt is non-deductible and treated as a dividend. The statutorily defined scope of the foreign controlled debt was amended recently such that loans obtained from banks or Russian affiliates are excluded under certain conditions; at the same time, loans obtained from foreign affiliates are explicitly included.

        Our Russian operations may be affected by requalification of interest into dividend (including by our inability to deduct interest) based on Russian thin capitalization rules if at any time the respective indebtedness qualifies as foreign controlled debt, or by the inability to deduct interest based on other reasons, however, we do not have any such indebtedness as of the date of this Annual Report.

Our Cypriot entities may be exposed to taxation in Russia if they are treated as having a Russian permanent establishment or as being Russian tax residents in the periods before they self-declared their Russian tax residence.

        As companies incorporated under the laws of Cyprus, HeadHunter Group PLC and Headhunter FSU Ltd. self-declared Russian tax residence starting from June 19, 2019 and November 8, 2018, respectively, pursuant to the provisions stipulated in the Russian Tax Code. At the same time, these companies of the Group can be deemed Russian tax residents in prior periods (limited by the 3-year statute of limitations).

        The Russian Tax Code provides for extended taxation and related tax obligations for foreign legal entities that carry on commercial activities in the Russian Federation in such a manner that they create either a permanent establishment or a tax residence (in the first case, the foreign legal entity is subject to Russian corporate income tax with regard to income derived from activities conducted through the permanent establishment; in the second case, the Russian corporate income tax applies to the

38

Table of Contents

worldwide income of the foreign legal entity; in addition, in both cases, other taxes may apply depending on the circumstances). Although tax residence rules for legal entities as defined in the Russian Tax Code are broadly similar to the respective concepts known in the international context (including those developed by the OECD for tax treaty purposes), they have not yet been sufficiently tested in the Russian administrative and court practice (since they have been in effect from January 1, 2015). The permanent establishment concept has been in effect for a while, but several key elements of this concept (for example, the allocation of income and expenses to the permanent establishment) still lack sufficient application guidelines.

        We do not believe that our Cypriot entities will be treated as having a tax residence or a permanent establishment in the Russian Federation in the periods before they self-declared tax residents of Russia. However, we cannot assure you that our Cypriot entities will not be treated by Russian tax authorities as having permanent establishment or Russian tax residence in those periods. If this occurs, additional Russian taxes (as well as related penalties) would be imposed on us, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Russian tax residence rules are relatively untested, and our tax residence status may be challenged.

        HeadHunter Group PLC and Headhunter FSU Ltd., companies incorporated under the laws of Cyprus, self-declared Russian tax residence starting from June 19, 2019 and November 8, 2018, respectively, pursuant to the provisions stipulated in the Russian Tax Code. Consequently, these companies are to be treated for Russian corporate income tax purposes in the same manner as other Russian taxpayers, and therefore, they are subject to the Russian corporate income tax on worldwide income and are entitled to all tax exemptions and benefits as provided under the Russian Tax Code. However, the relevant tax residence rules have not been sufficiently tested, particularly by publicly traded companies that have migrated to the Russian Federation for tax purposes, and it is possible that the self-declared tax residence status may be challenged in the future and, as a result, the 0% tax rate on incoming dividends may be denied.

        In addition, in 2020, new tax laws were passed in the Russian Federation phasing out certain tax benefits currently available to non-Russian registered but Russian tax resident entities, such as HeadHunter Group PLC and Headhunter FSU Ltd. In particular, starting from 2024, the 0% tax rate on dividends received will not be available for non-Russian registered but Russian tax resident entities.

The mechanics of withholding tax on Russian-sourced income are not precise.

        As a Russian taxpayer, we are now governed by the Russian Tax Code, which provides that dividends paid by us that are made up of Russian-sourced income are subject to Russian taxation. We act in the capacity of a tax agent and pay dividends net of the statutory withholding tax rate of 15% pursuant to Russian tax laws, which could be reduced depending on the tax status of each shareholder and pursuant to the double tax treaties concluded by the Russian Federation with other jurisdictions.

        Starting from 2015, the Russian Tax Code explicitly requires that in order to enjoy the benefits under an applicable double tax treaty, the person claiming such benefits must be the beneficial owner of the relevant income. Starting from 2017, in addition to a tax residence certificate, the Russian Tax Code requires the tax agent to obtain confirmation from the recipient of the income that it is the beneficial owner of the income. Russian tax law provides neither the form of such confirmation nor a list of documents that can demonstrate the beneficial owner status of the recipient with respect to the received income. In recent years, the Russian tax authorities started to challenge structures involving the payments outside of the Russian Federation, and in most cases, Russian courts tend to support the tax authorities' position. Thus, there can be no assurance that treaty relief at source will be available in practice.

39

Table of Contents

        The concept of "beneficial ownership" was introduced into the Russian Tax Code in 2015 as a part of the "deoffshorization" rules. In accordance with this concept, if a person serves as an intermediary and has an obligation to transfer part or all of the income received from the company to a third party (i.e., a person that is not able to act independently with respect to the use and disposition of the received income), such person may not be treated as the beneficial owner of income. The result of the denial of beneficial ownership would be the denial of tax treaty benefits (such as the reduced tax on dividends). Although the "beneficial ownership" concept as currently defined in the Russian Tax Code is in line with the relevant internationally known rules, the application of this concept in the Russian administrative and court practice currently shows rather broad and conflicting interpretations. Given the current conflicting interpretation of the "beneficial ownership" concept, the application of this concept may lead to excessive taxation of our retained earnings on their distribution, and additional taxation may also arise on the grounds of a permanent establishment in the Russian Federation.

        The mechanics of the application of Russian withholding tax on dividends by public companies that have migrated to the Russian Federation for tax purposes have not been tested, and there is a risk that we will not be in the position to apply reduced tax rates as applicable to Russian tax resident Holders or the reduced rates available under double tax treaties, therefore we will have to withhold the tax at the generally applicable 15% tax rate. See Item 10. "Additional Information, E. Taxation—Material Russian Tax Considerations—Taxation of Dividends and other distributions (including distributions in kind)."

        In addition, in June 2019, Russia deposited its instrument of ratification for the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (the "MLI"). Starting in 2021, the MLI is enforced with jurisdictions in respect of which notifications to the OECD were made confirming the completion of internal procedures for the covered tax agreements by Russia. The implementation of the MLI has introduced a variety of measures designed to update double tax treaties and reduce opportunities for tax optimization. In particular, the MLI sets forth additional requirements that a company must meet in order to avail itself of reduced withholding tax rates applicable to its passive income.

        The countries signing the MLI seek to prevent tax abuse either via adoption of (i) a general anti-abuse rule on the principal purpose of a transaction (the "PPT"), (ii) a combination of PPT and Simplified Limitation of Benefits (the "Simplified LOB") clause, or (iii) a Detailed LOB rule. Simplified LOB was the option selected by Russia with the intent to use the PPT rule and a number of objective criteria that restrict most treaty benefits to so-called "qualified persons" specified in the MLI. However, most other countries have selected the PPT. Therefore, unless mutually agreed by Russia and the contracting jurisdiction, only the PPT, instead of Simplified LOB, shall apply in the majority of cases. The PPT seeks to disallow the benefits of a particular double tax treaty where, broadly, the principal purpose of establishing a particular transaction or an arrangement was to obtain the benefits of a double tax treaty.

        These developments may potentially have an adverse impact on the availability of double taxation treaty benefits to the investors in our ADSs.

        In addition, in 2020, the Russian Government was directed to revise Russian double tax treaties, which are often used for tax planning, in order to increase withholding tax rates up to 15% for Russian-sourced dividend and interest income or, if negotiations are unsuccessful, to denunciate such treaties. Consequently, the Russian Ministry of Finance initiated negotiations with the competent authorities of Cyprus, Malta, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It is likely that the number of tax treaties subject to revisions may increase.

        Russia signed a protocol of the amendments to the Russia-Cyprus double tax treaty in September 2020, a protocol of the amendments to the Russia-Malta double tax treaty in October 2020 and a protocol of the amendments to Russia-Luxembourg double tax treaty in November 2020. The

40

Table of Contents

negotiations on similar protocols to double tax treaties with other jurisdictions are currently ongoing and may be completed soon.

        In accordance with the protocols of amendments to the Russia-Cyprus and Russia-Malta double tax treaties, new tax rates of 15% to both dividend and interest income came into force starting from January 1, 2021. Uncertainty exists with respect to the date when amendments to the Russia-Luxembourg protocol will come into force. Currently, it is expected that the changes provided by the protocol to the Russia-Luxembourg double tax treaty will apply to taxable periods as of January 1, 2022.

        In certain cases, reduced tax rates will remain in place. In particular, the preferential tax rate of 5% is available for dividend and interest income received by Cypriot or Maltese tax resident public companies whose shares are listed on a stock exchange and which have no less than 15% of free float shares, provided that this public company owns at least 15% of the shares in a Russian company paying the income for the period of at least 365 consecutive days. In addition, tax benefits are available for income received by Cypriot or Maltese pension funds and insurance companies, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus or Republic of Malta and its political subdivisions and the Central Bank of the Republic of Cyprus or Republic of Malta.

Risks Relating to Our Organizational Structure

The rights of our shareholders are governed by Cyprus law and our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association, and differ in some important respects from the typical rights of shareholders under U.S. state laws.

        Our corporate affairs are governed by our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association and by the laws governing companies incorporated in Cyprus. The rights of our shareholders and the responsibilities of members of our board of directors under Cyprus law and our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association are different than under the laws of some U.S. state laws. For example, by law, existing holders of shares in Cypriot public companies are entitled as a matter of law to pre-emptive rights on the issue of new shares in that company (if shares are issued for cash consideration). The pre-emptive rights, however, may be disapplied by our shareholders at a general meeting for a period of five years.

        In addition, our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association include other provisions, which differ from provisions typically included in the governing documents of most companies organized in the U.S.:

•

our board of directors can only take actions by a simple majority of votes;



•

our shareholders are able to convene an extraordinary general meeting as provided in section 126 of the Cyprus Companies Law; and



•

if our board of directors exercises its right to appoint a director to fill a vacancy on the board created during the term of a director's appointment, such appointment is valid until the next annual general meeting, where the director is eligible for re-election and the shareholders may choose whether to reappoint the director or appoint a new director.

        Further, our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association also require the approval of no less than 75% of present and voting shareholders for certain matters, as specified in the Cyprus Companies Law, including, among other things, amendments to our constitutional documents, dissolution or liquidation of our company, reducing the share capital and buying back shares.

        As a result of the differences described above, our shareholders may have rights different to those generally available to shareholders of companies organized under U.S. state laws, and our board of directors may find it more difficult to approve certain actions.

41

Table of Contents

As a holder of our ADSs, you may not be able to exercise your pre-emptive rights in relation to future issuances of ordinary shares.

        To raise funding in the future, we may issue additional ordinary shares, including in the form of ordinary shares. Generally, existing holders of shares in Cypriot public companies are entitled by law to pre-emptive rights on the issue of new shares in that company (provided that such shares are paid in cash and the pre-emption rights have not been disapplied by our shareholders at a general meeting for a specific period). You may not be able to exercise pre-emptive rights for ordinary shares where there is an issue of shares for non-cash consideration or where pre-emptive rights are disapplied. In the United States, we may be required to file a registration statement under the Securities Act to implement pre-emptive rights. We can give no assurances that an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act would be available to enable U.S. holders of ordinary shares to exercise such pre-emptive rights and, if such exemption is available, we may not take the steps necessary to enable U.S. holders of ordinary shares to rely on it. Accordingly, you may not be able to exercise your pre-emptive rights on future issuances of ordinary shares, and, as a result, your percentage ownership interest in us would be diluted. As our shareholders authorized the disapplication of pre-emptive rights for a period of five years from the date of the completion of the IPO, any issuances of shares after the five-year period will be subject pre-emptive rights unless those rights are additionally disapplied. Furthermore, rights offerings are difficult to implement effectively under the current U.S. securities laws, and our ability to raise capital in the future may be compromised if we need to do so via a rights offering in the United States.

Because of their significant voting power, our principal shareholders will be able to exert control over us and our significant corporate decisions.

        The shares owned by our principal shareholders collectively represented 51.2% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock as of December 31, 2020. As a result, our principal shareholders have the ability to determine the outcome of all matters submitted to our shareholders for approval, including the election and removal of directors, in accordance with the manner prescribed in our amended and restated articles of association, and any merger, consolidation, or sale of all or substantially all of our assets. The interests of our principal shareholders might not coincide with the interests of the other holders of our capital stock. This concentration of ownership may harm the value of our ordinary shares, among other things:

•

delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control of our Company;



•

impeding a merger, consolidation, takeover or other business combination involving our Company; or



•

causing us to enter into transactions or agreements that are not in the best interests of all shareholders.

We may be subject to defense tax in Cyprus.

        Dividend income received by a tax resident of Cyprus is subject to a special contribution for defence at a rate of 17%. In case the Company does not distribute at least 70% of its after-tax profits within two years of the end of the year in which the profits arose would be deemed to have distributed this amount as a dividend two years after that year end. On such amount of deemed dividend special contribution for defense, currently at a rate of 17%, is imposed to the extent that the ultimate direct/indirect shareholders of the Company are both Cyprus tax resident and Cyprus tax domiciled.

        The amount of this deemed dividend distribution, subject to the defense tax, is reduced by any actual dividend paid out of the profits of the relevant year at any time up to the date of the deemed distribution and the resulting balance of profits will be subject to the defense tax to the extent of the

42

Table of Contents

appropriation of shares held in the company at that time by Cyprus tax residents. The profits to be taken into account in determining the deemed dividend do not include fair value adjustments to any movable or immovable property.

        The defense tax payable as a result of a deemed dividend distribution is paid in the first instance by the Company which may recover such payment from its Cypriot shareholders by deducting the amount from an actual dividend paid to such shareholders from the relevant profits. To the extent that we are unable to recover this amount due to a change in shareholders or no actual dividend is ever paid out of the relevant profits, we will suffer the cost of this defense tax. Imposition of this tax could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results if we are unable to recover the tax from shareholders as described above

Our interest expenses may not be tax deductible.

        The deductibility of the interest expenses by the Company is subject to the interest limitation rules under Cypriot law. More specifically: (i) the interest limitation rule limits the deductibility of exceeding borrowing costs of the Cyprus tax resident company and/or Cyprus group to up to 30% of adjusted taxable profit (taxable EBITDA); (ii) the interest limitation rule contains an annual EUR3.000.000 safe-harbor threshold. This means that borrowing costs up to and including EUR3.000.000 are in any case not limited by this rule (the EUR3.000.000 threshold would apply in cases where '30% of taxable EBIDTA' results to an amount below EUR3.000.000); (iii) in the case of a Cyprus group the EUR3.000.000 applies for the aggregate exceeding borrowing costs of the Cyprus group and not per taxpayer. The interest limitation rule applies to exceeding borrowing costs irrespective of whether the financing is with related parties or third parties. If we are unable to deduct our interest expenses for tax purposes, our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Risks Relating to Ownership of our ADSs

As a foreign private issuer and "controlled company" within the meaning of the Nasdaq's corporate governance rules, we are permitted to rely on exemptions from certain of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards, including the requirement that a majority of our board of directors consist of independent directors. Our reliance on such exemptions may afford less protection to holders of our ordinary shares.

        As a company not listed on the regulated market of the Cyprus Stock Exchange, we are not required to comply with any corporate governance code requirements applicable to Cypriot public companies.

        The Nasdaq corporate governance rules require listed companies to have, among other things, a majority of independent board members and independent director oversight of executive compensation, nomination of directors and corporate governance matters. As a foreign private issuer, we are permitted to follow home country practice in lieu of the above requirements. If we rely on the foreign private issuer exemption to certain of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards, our board of directors approach to governance may be different from that of a board of directors consisting of a majority of independent directors, and, as a result, the management oversight of our Company may be more limited than if we were subject to all of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards.

        In the event we no longer qualify as a foreign private issuer, we may rely on the "controlled company" exemption under the Nasdaq corporate governance rules. A "controlled company" under the Nasdaq corporate governance rules is a company of which more than 50% of the voting power is held by an individual, group or another company. Our principal shareholders control a majority of the voting power of our outstanding ordinary shares, making us a "controlled company" within the meaning of the Nasdaq corporate governance rules. As a controlled company, we are eligible to elect not to comply with certain of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards, including the requirement that a majority

43

Table of Contents

of directors on our board of directors are independent directors and the requirement that our remuneration committee consist entirely of independent directors, which shall be mandatory for us in the event that we cease to be qualified in such capacity.

        Accordingly, our shareholders may not have the same protection afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all of the Nasdaq corporate governance standards, and the ability of our independent directors to influence our business policies and affairs may be reduced.

We are an "emerging growth company," and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to emerging growth companies make our ADSs less attractive to investors.

        We are an "emerging growth company," as defined in the JOBS Act, and we take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not "emerging growth companies" including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We cannot predict if investors will find our ADSs less attractive because we rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our ADSs less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our ADSs, and the price of our ADSs may be more volatile.

While we currently qualify as an "emerging growth company" under the JOBS Act, if we cease to be an emerging growth company, our costs and the demands placed upon our management will increase.

        We will remain an emerging growth company until the earliest of: (1) the last day of the fiscal year (a) following the fifth anniversary of the completion of our IPO, or December 31, 2024, (b) in which our annual gross revenue exceeds $1.07 billion, or (c) in which we are deemed to be a "large accelerated filer" as defined in Rule 12b-2 under the Exchange Act, which would occur if the market value of our ADSs that are held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of the last business day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter; and (2) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities during any three-year period. Once we lose emerging growth company status, we expect the costs and demands placed upon our management to increase, as we will be required to comply with additional disclosure and accounting requirements. In addition, management time and attention, as well as the engagement of our auditors and/or other consultants, will be required in order for us to prepare to comply with the increased disclosure and accounting standards required of companies who are not emerging growth companies, most notably compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and related auditor attestation requirements.

We may lose our foreign private issuer status in the future, which could result in significant additional costs and expenses.

        As discussed above, we are a foreign private issuer, and therefore, we are not required to comply with all of the periodic disclosure and current reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. The determination of foreign private issuer status is made annually on the last business day of an issuer's most recently completed second fiscal quarter, and, accordingly, the next determination will be made with respect to us on June 30, 2021. We would lose our foreign private issuer status if, for example, more than 50% of our total assets are located in the United States as of June 30, 2021. If we lose our foreign private issuer status on this date, we will be required to file with the SEC periodic reports and registration statements on U.S. domestic issuer forms, which are more detailed and extensive than the forms available to a foreign private issuer. We will also have to mandatorily comply with U.S. federal proxy requirements, and our officers, directors and principal shareholders will become subject to the short-swing profit disclosure and recovery provisions of Section 16 of the Exchange Act. In addition, we will lose our ability to rely upon exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements under the listing rules of Nasdaq. As a U.S. listed public company that is not a foreign private issuer, we will incur significant additional legal, accounting and other expenses that we will not incur as a foreign

44

Table of Contents

private issuer, and accounting, reporting and other expenses in order to maintain a listing on a U.S. securities exchange. These expenses will relate to, among other things, the obligation to present our financial information in accordance with U.S. GAAP in the future.

As we are a "foreign private issuer" and follow certain home country corporate governance practices, our shareholders may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all Nasdaq corporate governance requirements.

        As a foreign private issuer, we have the option to follow certain Cypriot corporate governance practices rather than those of Nasdaq, provided that we disclose the requirements we are not following and describe the home country practices we are following. We rely on this "foreign private issuer exemption" with respect to the Nasdaq requirements to have the audit committee appoint our Independent Registered Public Accountants, Nasdaq rules for shareholder meeting quorums and record dates and Nasdaq rules requiring shareholders to approve equity compensation plans and material revisions thereto. We may in the future elect to follow home country practices in Cyprus with regard to other matters. As a result, our shareholders may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all Nasdaq corporate governance requirements.

We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in relation to our financial reporting as of the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, which could result in material misstatements in our historical financial reports.

        Although we were not at the time yet subject to the certification or attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in the course of reviewing our financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, our management and our Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm identified deficiencies that we concluded represented a material weakness and significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting. SEC guidance defines a "material weakness" as a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. SEC guidance defines a "significant deficiency" as a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting that is less severe than a material weakness, yet important enough to merit attention by those responsible for oversight of the registrant's financial reporting.

        In relation to our financial reporting as of the year ended December 31, 2018, we identified a material weakness relating to our information systems, whereby our information systems access, the segregation of duties and user access rights within our information systems and change management controls were not operating effectively. In relation to our financial reporting as of the year ended December 31, 2019, we identified a continuing material weakness relating only to our "1C" accounting system, our accounting system software, whereby the user access rights and change management controls were not operating effectively.

        We took measures to remediate the material weaknesses identified. Please see Item 15 "Controls and Procedures" for our assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2020.

If we fail to establish and maintain proper internal controls as required by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, our ability to produce accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations could be impaired.

        Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("Section 404(a)") requires that our management assess and report annually on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting and identify any material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. However, for as long as we are

45

Table of Contents

an emerging growth company, our Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm will not be required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("Section 404(b)").

        As discussed above in "—We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in relation to our financial reporting as of the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2019, which could result in material misstatements in our historical financial reports.," we and our Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm identified certain material weaknesses in connection with our December 31, 2018 and 2019 audits. The continued presence of these or other material weaknesses and/or significant deficiencies in any future financial reporting periods could result in financial statement errors that, in turn, could lead to errors in our financial reports, delays in our financial reporting, and that could require us to restate our operating results or our auditors may be required to issue a qualified audit report, and investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and the market price of our ADSs could be materially and adversely affected. We might also not identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal controls in connection with evaluating our compliance with Section 404(a). In order to achieve and maintain compliance with the requirements of Section 404(a), we will need to expend significant resources and provide significant management oversight. Implementing any appropriate changes to our internal controls may require specific compliance training for our directors and employees, entail substantial costs in order to modify our existing accounting systems, take a significant period of time to complete and divert management's attention from other business concerns. These changes may not, however, be effective in maintaining the adequacy of our internal controls.

        If either we are unable to conclude that we have effective internal control over financial reporting or, at the appropriate time, our Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm is unwilling or unable to provide us with an unqualified report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as required by Section 404(b), investors may lose confidence in our operating results, the price of our ADSs could decline, and we may be subject to litigation or regulatory enforcement actions. In addition, if we are unable to meet the requirements of Section 404, we may not be able to remain listed on Nasdaq.

HeadHunter Group PLC is a holding company and depends on its subsidiaries, who are separate legal entities, for cash to fund its operations and expenses, including future dividend payments, if any.

        As a holding company, distributions from our operating subsidiaries are our principal source of cash flow. Therefore, our ability to fund and conduct our business, service our debt and pay dividends, if any, in the future depends on the ability of our subsidiary to generate sufficient cash flow to make upstream cash distributions to us. Our operating subsidiaries are separate legal entities, and although they are directly or indirectly wholly owned and controlled by us, they have no obligation to make any funds available to us, whether in the form of loans, dividends or otherwise. The ability of our subsidiaries to distribute cash to us will also be subject to, among other things, restrictions that may be contained in our subsidiary agreements (as entered into from time to time), availability of sufficient funds in such subsidiary and applicable laws and regulatory restrictions. Claims of any creditors of our subsidiary generally will have priority as to the assets of such subsidiary over our claims and claims of our creditors and shareholders. In addition, as our material subsidiary generates profits and declares dividends in rubles and any dividends paid to holders of our ADSs in the future would be paid in U.S. dollars, any significant fluctuation of the value of the ruble against the U.S. dollar and other currencies may materially and adversely affect the dividend amounts received by holders of our ADSs. To the extent the ability of our subsidiary to distribute dividends or other payments to us is limited in any way, our ability to fund and conduct our business, service our debt and pay dividends, if any, could be harmed.

46

Table of Contents

Anti-takeover provisions in our organizational documents and Cyprus law may discourage or prevent a change of control, even if an acquisition would be beneficial to our shareholders, which could depress the price of our ADSs and prevent attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current management.

        As we are incorporated in Cyprus, we are subject to Cypriot law. Our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association contain provisions that may discourage unsolicited takeover proposals that shareholders may consider to be in their best interests. In particular, our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association permit our board of directors to issue preference shares from time to time, with such rights and preferences as they consider appropriate.

        Our board of directors could also authorize the issuance of preference shares with terms and conditions and under circumstances that could have an effect of discouraging a takeover or other transaction. We are also subject to certain provisions under Cyprus law which could delay or prevent a change of control. In particular, any merger, consolidation or amalgamation of the Company would require the active consent of our board of directors and our shareholders. Our board of directors may be appointed or removed by the holders of the majority of the voting power of our shares, which are controlled by our principal shareholders, in accordance with the manner prescribed in our amended and restated articles of association. Together these provisions may make the removal of management more difficult and may discourage transactions that otherwise could involve payment of a premium over prevailing market prices for our ADSs.

Neither Cypriot or the broader EU takeover laws apply to us, and the mandatory offer requirements in our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association do not apply to any of our existing shareholders or its affiliates as of the date of the adoption of our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association and do not preclude either of those shareholders from acquiring or re-acquiring, as the case may be, a majority of the voting rights in the Company. Accordingly, our minority shareholders do not benefit in such cases from the same protections to which the minority shareholders of a Cypriot company that is listed on an EU regulated market would be entitled.

        As of the date of this Annual Report, Cypriot law does not contain any requirement for a mandatory offer to be made by a person acquiring shares of a Cypriot company, even if such an acquisition confers on such person control, if such company's shares are not listed on a regulated market in the European Economic Area, unless the acquirer acquires 90% or more of all the shares of a target company or of any class of shares in the target company or acquires sufficient shares to aggregate, together with those which it already holds (in its own name or that of a nominee or held by its subsidiary) 90% or more of the target's shares. Neither our shares nor our ADSs are listed on a regulated market in the EEA. Consequently, a prospective bidder acquiring either our shares or ADSs may gain control over us in circumstances in which there is no requirement to conduct a mandatory offer under an applicable statutory takeover protection regime.

        Our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association contain a mandatory tender offer provision that requires a third party acquiror that acquires, together with parties acting in concert, 30% or 50% or more of the voting rights in our shares to make a tender offer to all of our other shareholders at the highest price paid for shares in the Company by that third party (or parties acting in concert) in the preceding 12 months. However, the provision does not apply to any of our existing shareholders or their affiliates as of the date of the adoption of our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association, which means such shareholders (including Highworld Investments Limited and ELQ Investors VIII Limited, and their respective affiliates) can individually or collectively go below 30% or 50% of the voting power, as the case may be, and subsequently acquire more than 30% or 50% of the voting power, as the case may be, without making a tender offer.

        Accordingly, the mandatory tender offer provision in our amended and restated memorandum and articles of association does not provide a minority shareholder with a right to dispose of its shares in a

47

Table of Contents

number of scenarios in which a shareholder, together with parties acting in concert if applicable, may acquire control over us. As a result, holders of our ADSs may not be given the opportunity to receive treatment equal to what may be received, in the event of an offer made by a potential bidder with a view to gaining control over us or by certain other holders of our ADSs or, as the case may be, shares at the relevant time.

Future sales of our ADSs, or the perception in the public markets that these sales may occur, may depress our stock price.

        As of December 31, 2020, we had 50,317,860 ordinary shares outstanding. If a substantial number of these ordinary shares (or ADSs representing these ordinary shares) were sold in the public market, or the market perceives that such sales may occur, the market price of our ADSs could be adversely affected.

        We have entered into a registration rights agreement pursuant to which we have agreed, under certain circumstances, to file a registration statement to register the ordinary shares, ADSs and any securities convertible or exchangeable into our ordinary shares or our ADSs held by certain principal shareholders, as well as to cooperate in certain public offerings of such registrable securities. If our principal shareholders sell, or indicate an intent to sell, substantial amounts of ordinary shares or ADSs in the future, the market price of our ADSs could decline. In addition, such secondary sales may impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities.

        All of our ADSs are freely tradable without restriction under the Securities Act, except for any of our ADSs that may be held or acquired by our directors, executive officers and other affiliates, as that term is defined in the Securities Act, which will be restricted and/or control securities under the Securities Act. The ordinary shares held by our affiliates may also be publicly sold in accordance with the requirements of Rule 144 under the Securities Act, including the volume and manner of sale requirements of that rule, or otherwise in compliance with the Securities Act.

        We previously filed a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act to register ordinary shares subject to options or other equity awards issued or reserved for future issuance under our equity incentive plans. Sales of a substantial number of ordinary shares (or ADSs representing such ordinary shares) issued under these plans in the public market could have an adverse effect on the market price of our ADSs.

        In the future, we may also issue our securities if, for example, we need to raise capital to support our growth strategy or in connection with an acquisition. The amount of ADSs issued in connection with a capital raise or acquisition could constitute a material portion of our then-outstanding ADSs, and sales of such ordinary shares or ADSs by us could cause the market price of our ADSs to decline.

You may not be able to exercise your right to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs.

        Holders of ADSs may exercise voting rights with respect to the ordinary shares represented by their ADSs only in accordance with the provisions of the deposit agreement. The deposit agreement provides that, upon receipt of notice of any meeting of holders of our ordinary shares, including any general meeting of our shareholders, the depositary will, as soon as practicable thereafter, fix a record date for the determination of ADS holders who shall be entitled to give instructions for the exercise of voting rights. Upon timely receipt of notice from us, the depositary shall distribute to the holders as of the record date a notice stating (i) final information particular to such vote and meeting and any solicitation materials, (ii) that each registered holder of ADRs on the record date set by the depositary will, subject to any applicable provisions of the laws of the Republic of Cyprus and our articles of association, be entitled to instruct the depositary as to the exercise of the voting rights pertaining to the ordinary shares represented by the ADSs evidenced by such registered holder's ADRs and (iii) the

48

Table of Contents

manner in which such instructions may be given, including instructions to give a discretionary proxy to a person designated by us.

        If you qualify, you may instruct the depositary to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs. Otherwise, you will not be able to exercise your right to vote unless you withdraw our ordinary shares underlying the ADSs you hold prior to our and the depositary's voting record date(s), which may be different. However, you may not know about the meeting far enough in advance to withdraw those ordinary shares. The depositary, upon timely notice from us, will notify you of the upcoming vote and arrange to deliver voting materials to you. We cannot guarantee that you will receive the voting materials in time to ensure that you can instruct the depositary to vote the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs. In addition, the depositary and its agents are not responsible for failing to carry out voting instructions or for the manner of carrying out voting instructions. This means that you may not be able to exercise your right to vote, and there may be nothing you can do if the ordinary shares underlying your ADSs are not voted as you requested.

You may not receive distributions on the ordinary shares represented by our ADSs or any value for them if it is illegal or impractical to make them available to holders of ADSs.

        The depositary of our ADSs has agreed to pay to you the cash dividends or other distributions it receives on our ordinary shares after deducting its fees and expenses. You will receive these distributions in proportion to the number of our ordinary shares your ADSs represent. However, the depositary is not responsible if it decides that it is unlawful or impractical to make a distribution available to any holders of ADSs. We have no obligation to take any other action to permit the distribution to any holders of our ADSs or ordinary shares. This means that you may not receive the distributions we make on our ordinary shares or any value from them if it is illegal or impractical for us to make them available to you. These restrictions may have a material adverse effect on the value of your ADSs.

You may be subject to limitations on the transfer of your ADSs.

        Your ADSs, which may be evidenced by ADRs, are transferable on the books of the depositary. However, the depositary may close its books at any time or from time to time when it deems expedient in connection with the performance of its duties. The depositary may refuse to deliver, transfer or register transfers of your ADSs generally when our books or the books of the depositary are closed, or at any time if we or the depositary think it is advisable to do so because of any requirement of law, government or governmental body, or under any provision of the deposit agreement, or for any other reason.

It may be difficult to enforce a U.S. judgment against us, our directors and officers named in this Annual Report outside the United States, or to assert U.S. securities law claims outside of the United States.

        All of our current directors and senior officers reside outside the United States, principally in the Russian Federation. Substantially all of our assets and the assets of our current directors and executive officers are located outside the United States, principally in the Russian Federation. As a result, it may be difficult or impossible for investors to effect service of process upon us within the United States or other jurisdictions, including judgments predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the federal securities laws of the United States. Additionally, it may be difficult to assert U.S. securities law claims in actions originally instituted outside of the United States. Foreign courts may refuse to hear a U.S. securities law claim because foreign courts may not be the most appropriate forums in which to bring such a claim. Even if a foreign court agrees to hear a claim, it may determine that the law of the jurisdiction in which the foreign court resides, and not U.S. law, is applicable to the claim. Further, if U.S. law is found to be applicable, the content of applicable U.S. law must be proved as a fact, which

49

Table of Contents

can be a time-consuming and costly process, and certain matters of procedure would still be governed by the law of the jurisdiction in which the foreign court resides.

        In particular, investors should be aware that there is uncertainty as to whether the courts of the Russian Federation would recognize and enforce judgments of U.S. courts obtained against us or our directors or management predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States or entertain original actions brought in Russian courts against us or our directors or officers predicated upon the securities laws of the United States or any state in the United States. There is no treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation providing for reciprocal recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments in civil and commercial matters. As a result of the difficulty associated with enforcing a judgment against us, you may not be able to collect any damages awarded by either a U.S. or foreign court.

We may be treated as a passive foreign investment company, which could result in material adverse tax consequences for investors in the ADSs subject to U.S. federal income tax.

        Special U.S. federal income tax rules apply to U.S. persons owning shares of a "passive foreign investment company" as defined in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (a "PFIC"). If we are treated as a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. Holder (as defined in Item 10. "Additional Information, E. Taxation—Material U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for U.S. Holders") holds the ADS (or ordinary shares represented by the ADSs), the U.S. Holder may be subject to certain material adverse tax consequences upon a sale, exchange, or other disposition of the ADSs (or such ordinary shares), or upon the receipt of distributions in respect of the ADSs (or such ordinary shares). Based on the current and anticipated composition of our income, assets and operations, we do not expect to be treated as a PFIC for the current taxable year or in the foreseeable future. This is a factual determination, however, that depends on, among other things, the composition of our income and assets from time to time, and thus the determination can only be made annually after the close of each taxable year. Therefore, there can be no assurance that we will not be classified as a PFIC for the current taxable year or for any future taxable year. U.S. Holders should consult their tax advisors about the potential application of the PFIC rules to their investment in the ADSs.

General Risk Factors

The price of our ADSs might fluctuate significantly.

        The trading price of our ADSs may be volatile and subject to wide price fluctuations in response to various factors, including:

•

the overall performance of the equity markets;



•

issuance of new or changed securities analysts' reports or recommendations;



•

additions or departures of key personnel;



•

sale of our ADSs by us, our principal shareholders or members of our management;



•

general economic conditions;



•

speculative trading in and short sales of our ADSs, as well as trading phenomena such as the "short squeeze";



•

changes in interest rates; and



•

availability of capital.

        These and other factors might cause the market price of our ADSs to fluctuate substantially, which might limit or prevent investors from readily selling their ADSs and may otherwise negatively affect the

50

Table of Contents

liquidity of our ADSs. In addition, in recent years, the stock market has experienced significant price and volume fluctuations. This volatility has had a significant impact on the market price of securities issued by many companies across many industries. The changes frequently appear to occur without regard to the operating performance of the affected companies. Accordingly, the price of our ADSs could fluctuate based upon factors that have little or nothing to do with our Company, and these fluctuations could materially reduce our share price. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company's securities. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in substantial costs, divert our management's attention and resources, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

An active trading market for our ADSs may not be sustained to provide adequate liquidity.

        We cannot predict the extent to which investor interest in our Company will lead to an active trading market on Nasdaq that may be sustained to provide adequate liquidity. If an active trading market is not sustained, you may have difficulty selling any ADSs that you purchase, and the value of such ADSs might be materially impaired.

Reports published by analysts, including projections in those reports that exceed our actual results, could adversely affect the price and trading volume of our ADSs.

        The projections of securities research analysts may vary widely and may not accurately predict the results we actually achieve. The price of our ADSs may decline if our actual results do not match the projections of these securities research analysts. Similarly, if one or more of the analysts who write reports on us downgrades our stock or publishes inaccurate or unfavorable research about our business, the price of our ADSs could decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of us or fails to publish reports on us regularly, the price or trading volume of our ADSs could decline.

We may not be able to successfully execute future acquisitions or efficiently manage any acquired business.

        As part of our growth strategy, we may decide to expand, in part, by acquiring certain complementary businesses. The success of any material acquisition will depend upon several factors, including our ability to: identify and acquire businesses cost-effectively; conduct due diligence and identify key issues prior to the acquisition; integrate acquired personnel user data, operations, products and technologies into our organization effectively; and retain and motivate key personnel and to sustainably retain the customers of acquired firms.

        Any such acquisition may require a significant commitment of management time, capital investment and other management resources. We may not be successful in identifying and negotiating acquisitions on terms favorable to us. Any such acquisition could involve us taking on additional debt or give rise to new liabilities. In addition, we cannot be certain that any acquisition, if completed, will be successfully integrated into our existing operations or will perform according to our expectations. If we are unable to effectively integrate or partner with an acquired business, our business, financial condition and results of operations may be materially and adversely affected. In addition, if we use our equity securities as consideration for acquisitions, we may dilute the value of the ordinary shares or ADSs.

The obligations associated with being a public company will continue to require significant resources and management attention.

        As a public company in the United States, we will continue to incur legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not previously incur as a private company. We are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the listing requirements of Nasdaq and

51

Table of Contents

other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations will continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time consuming or costly and increase the demand on our systems and resources, particularly after we are no longer an "emerging growth company." The Exchange Act requires that we file annual and current reports with respect to our business, financial condition and results of operations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we establish and maintain effective internal controls and procedures for financial reporting. Furthermore, the continuing need to establish and maintain the corporate infrastructure demanded of a public company may divert management's attention from implementing our growth strategy, which could prevent us from improving our business, financial condition and results of operations. We have made, and will continue to make, changes to our internal controls and procedures for financial reporting and accounting systems to meet our reporting obligations as a public company. However, the measures we take may not be sufficient to satisfy our obligations as a public company. In addition, these rules and regulations will continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more time consuming and costly. For example, we expect these rules and regulations to make it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to incur substantial costs to maintain the same or similar coverage, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

        In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We will continue to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management's time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us, and our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Item 4.    Information on the Company

A.  History and Development of the Company

Corporate Information

        We were incorporated in Cyprus on May 28, 2014 under the Cyprus Companies Law, Cap. 113 as Zemenik Trading Limited, and our registered office is located at 42 Dositheou Street, Strovolos, Nicosia, Cyprus. On March 1, 2018, Zemenik Trading Limited was converted from a private limited company incorporated in Cyprus into a public limited company incorporated in Cyprus, and the Company's legal name changed, pursuant to a special resolution at a general meeting of the shareholders, to HeadHunter Group PLC. The legal effect of this conversion under Cypriot law was limited to the change of legal form. Our commercial name is HeadHunter. In June 2019, we changed the effective place of management of HeadHunter Group PLC from Cyprus to Russia, which resulted in HeadHunter Group PLC becoming a Russian tax resident. See Item 10. "Additional Information, E. Taxation—Material Russian Tax Considerations—Taxation of Dividends and Distributions."

        The principal executive office of our key operating subsidiary, Headhunter LLC, is located at 9/10 Godovikova Street, Moscow, 129085, Russia. The telephone number at this address is

52

Table of Contents

+7 495 974-6427. The SEC maintains an internet site that contains reports and other information regarding issuers, such as ourselves, that we file electronically, with the SEC at www.sec.gov. Our website address is www.hh.ru. The information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website is not a part of, and shall not be incorporated by reference into, this Annual Report. We have included our website address as an inactive textual reference only.

        Our agent for service of process in the United States is Cogency Global Inc., and its address is 10 E. 40th Street, 10th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

        For a description of our principal capital expenditures and divestitures for the three years ended December 31, 2020 and for those currently in progress, see Item 5. "Operating and Financial Review and Prospects."

B.  Business Overview

Overview

        We are the leading online recruitment platform in Russia and the CIS region and focus on connecting job seekers with employers. We offer potential employers and recruiters paid access to our extensive CV database and job postings platform. We also provide job seekers and employers with a value added services portfolio centered around their recruitment needs. Our brand and the strength of our platform allow us to generate significant traffic, over 91% of which was free for us as of December 2020, according to our internal data, and we were the sixth most visited job and employment website globally as of January 1, 2021, according to the latest available data from SimilarWeb. Our CV database contained 36.2 million, 41.8 million and 48.2 million total CVs as of December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, and our platform hosted a daily average of approximately 559,000, 588,000 and 608,000 job postings in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, our platform averaged 20.0 million, 21.9 million and 22.5 million unique visitors per month, respectively, according to LiveInternet.

        Our user base consists primarily of job seekers who use our products and services to discover new career opportunities. The majority of the services we provide to job seekers are free. Our customer base consists primarily of businesses using our CV database and job posting service to fill vacancies inside their organizations.

        The quality and quantity of CVs in our database attract an increasing number of customers, which leads to more job seekers turning to us as their primary recruitment and related services provider, creating a powerful network effect that has allowed us to continuously solidify our market leadership and increase the gap between us and our competitors.

        Our portfolio of recruitment-centric VAS is designed to improve the customer experience, increase the effectiveness of the recruitment process for our customer base and enable us to penetrate each link of the recruitment value chain beginning with sourcing, to engaging, pre-selecting, interviewing and then onboarding the selected candidates. We are working to further integrate our VAS features into our core products in order to enhance efficiency throughout the overall recruitment process, which we believe will increase the value proposition of our services and improve retention rates and average revenue per customer.

        We were founded in 2000 and have successfully established a strong, trusted brand and the leading market position, which have enabled us to achieve significant growth in recent years. We had approximately 253,000, 322,000 and 351,000 paying customers on our platform for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. We have a highly diversified customer base, representing the majority of the industries active in the Russian economy. Our brand awareness is the highest among white and blue collar candidates as compared to other Russian online recruitment players, according to Socis MR Rus, which, coupled with a nationwide sales force and broad customer reach, creates barriers for new entrants to our markets.

53

Table of Contents

        We engage with job seekers and employers via our desktop sites, mobile sites and mobile applications. Since launch, our mobile applications had been downloaded 28.3 million times cumulatively as of December 31, 2020, and our mobile platforms currently account for the majority of our traffic. Our scalable technology platform utilizes an increasingly clear and simple user interface enhanced by our search engine, which is powered by AI and machine learning algorithms.

        Our total revenue was 6,118 million, 7,789 million, and 8,282 million for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. During the same periods, our net income was 1,033 million, 1,581 million, and 1,886 million, respectively. In addition to our growth, we have consistently maintained strong profitability.

Our Market Opportunity

        We believe the online recruitment market has significant growth potential in Russia and the CIS region, driven by intensifying competition for human capital, the ongoing shift of jobs marketing spend online and increasing maturity of the HR functions in Russia. The Russian labor market is characterized by a shrinking labor force, high turnover of employees and growth of salaries exceeding consumer price inflation and real GDP growth, leading to strong competition for highly skilled and talented employees. High internet penetration and ubiquitous usage of internet by businesses and consumers is creating a favorable backdrop for the rapid shift of recruitment services and spending on jobs advertising to online platforms from offline media.

        As the leading online recruitment platform in Russia and the CIS region with significant market share, a well-recognized brand, the largest CV database and the most comprehensive portfolio of additional services, we believe we are well positioned to benefit from the growing online recruitment market.

        On December 25, 2020, HeadHunter completed an acquisition of 100% of the issued charter capital of LLC "Zarplata.ru" from Hearst Shkulev Digital Regional Network B.V. for a total purchase price of 3.5 billion in cash, subject to customary post-completion price adjustments and limited post-closing escrow arrangements.

        Zarplata.ru is a job classified platform with a strong footprint in certain Russian regions, such as Siberia and Ural. It was formed by consolidating local city portals, which has created high local brand recognition and means that Zarplata.ru has a significant share of organic traffic. Revenue and traffic generated by Zarplata.ru in its key regions is comparable with HeadHunter's revenue and traffic in those geographies.

        Zarplata.ru will operate separately from HeadHunter and will remain accessible at its existing web address, www.zarplata.ru. It is currently anticipated that the Zarplata.ru management team will remain in place and will continue to be involved in further operations.

        The Zarplata.ru Acquisition will accelerate our development in key strategic areas such as increasing penetration in the Russian regions and outreach to blue collars and SMAs. We believe that the transaction offers significant synergy potential with an expectation that we and Zarplata.ru will align our sales, monetization and marketing strategies as well as product development.

Our Services

        We provide both job seekers and employers with a broad range of recruitment related services. Our services include access to our CV database and job postings, as well as additional recruitment-centric VAS.

        We derive revenue primarily from providing access to our CV database and posting job advertisements on our platform. Access to our CV database is a subscription-based service with the

54

Table of Contents

duration of the subscription ranging from one day to one year. The price of a subscription to our CV database is defined by the geographical and professional segment of the database to which a customer wishes to purchase access (for example, access to CVs of job seekers residing in Moscow and looking for a job in the professional area of marketing) and the duration of the subscription. Since August 1, 2020, each type of access to our CV database contains a limited number of job seekers' contacts to view (for example, there are 120 contacts provided for the one-day access and 9,000 contacts are provided for annual access to the whole of Russia). After reaching the limit, in order to view more job seekers' contact details, customers would need to purchase additional packs of contacts. Our job posting service allows customers to purchase one job posting or a package of multiple job postings and use them when needed to post or refresh job advertisements on our website. Customers may also choose to buy bundled subscriptions, which include access to our CV database and the ability to post job advertisements over the period of subscription.

        Job seekers can search job postings and upload their CVs to our database to apply for posted vacancies. The majority of the services we provide to job seekers are free, but we also offer job seekers various fee-based career and promotional services.

        The following table provides a breakdown of our revenue by product type:

CV Database Access

        Our highly predictable, recurring subscription-based CV database accounts for 21.9% of our total revenue in the year ended December 31, 2020. Job seekers submit their CVs to be uploaded to our database, and employers pay a subscription fee to access and search our CV database for a period of time. Customers can specify a particular segment of our CV database to search, such as by industry or geographical region. As of December 31, 2019, our CV database contained a total of more than 41.8 million CVs, 12.8 million of which were uploaded by job seekers in the Moscow region and 4.4 million by job seekers in the St. Petersburg region. As of December 31, 2020, our CV database grew to a total of more than 48.2 million CVs, 14.3 million of which were uploaded by job seekers in the Moscow region and 5.0 million by job seekers in the St. Petersburg region. The CVs in our database also represent job seekers in a variety of industries. As of December 31, 2020, approximately 65% of our CV database was comprised of white collar job seekers and 35% of blue collar job seekers. The following table provides a breakdown of the number of visible CVs in our database from each Russian Federal District as of January 1, 2021.

55

Table of Contents

        Our CV database contains, on average, approximately 1.3 CVs per registered account as of December 31, 2020. In addition, for every CV that was posted to our database, 56% of total visible CVs (excluding CVs acquired from Job.ru) were used to apply to a job posting at least once over the last two years, and 70% of total visible CVs (excluding CVs acquired from Job.ru) have either applied at least once for a job posting or edited a CV in the last two years as of December 31, 2020, which we believe is one of the highest conversion rates in our industry.

        Since August 1, 2020, each type of new or renewed access to our CV database contains a limited number of job seekers contacts to view (for example, there are 120 contacts provided for the one-day access and 9,000 contacts are provided for annual access to the whole of Russia). After reaching the limit, in order to view more job seekers contact details, customers would need to purchase additional packs of contacts.

        We evaluate and approve the CVs submitted to our database before they are uploaded to ensure our customers are viewing complete and high-quality CVs. We are continuing to develop and improve our AI system to streamline this approval process, and on average for the year ended December 31, 2020, approximately 70% of CVs submitted to our database were approved for publication by our AI and heuristic systems without the need for further human moderation. Our AI system also collects data from uploaded CVs to improve search results, suggest relevant applicants to our customers and improve overall functionality of our CV database. See "—Technology and Intellectual Property—Artificial Intelligence."

Job Postings

        In addition to searching our CV database, customers can post their job advertisements for up to 30 days on our platform for a one-off fee, depending on the volume of postings. Job postings represented 40.4% of our total revenue in the year ended December 31, 2020. Job seekers can browse our platform and apply for the positions they select. For the year ended December 31, 2020, our platform contained a daily average of approximately 608,000 job postings, approximately 192,000 of which were for positions in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions, approximately 373,000 of which were for positions in other regions of Russia and approximately 48,000 of which were for positions in Belarus, Kazakhstan and the other countries in which we operate, except for Ukraine.

        The job postings on our platform also represent positions across a broad range of industries.

Bundled Subscriptions

        Our highly predictable, recurring bundled subscriptions accounted for 28.6% of our total revenue in the year ended December 31, 2020. We provide access to our CV database and allow customers to display job advertisements on our website on a subscription basis, with the duration of the subscription ranging from one day to one year. The number of job postings included in our bundled subscriptions is capped by a contractually stated limit, which became effective on September 1, 2015. Since August 1, 2020, each type of new or renewed access to our CV database contains a limited number of job seekers contacts to view (for example, there are 120 contacts provided for the one day access and 9,000 contacts are provided for annual access to the whole of Russia). After reaching the limit, in order to view more job seekers' contact details, customers would need to purchase additional packs of contacts. Our bundled subscriptions offer value to our customers who choose to purchase more than one of our services. For example, a customer may purchase a subscription to access our CV database for one month with a specified number of job postings over that same period included in a contract for a flat fee.

56

Table of Contents

Human Resource Value Added Services

        In addition to our primary online recruitment services, we offer customers additional VAS that are aimed at enhancing effectiveness and increasing efficiency throughout the recruitment process. Our product portfolio is constantly evolving, allowing us to meet the developing needs of our customer base. Currently, we offer employers an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), benchmarking tools, such as online labor market and salary analytics and employer branding consulting, as well as recruitment process automation tools. VAS represented 9.1% of our total revenue in the year ended December 31, 2020.

        Beginning with our internally developed ATS platform, Talantix, we aim to complement our core products with VAS covering all recruitment related functions performed by our customers. We aim to be a "one-stop shop" solution for recruitment professionals by actively developing products and services for candidate sourcing, pre-selection, screening, interviewing and onboarding. We are also experimenting with alternative business models and recruitment products to address niche demands of our customers who may begin using only some of our core services, in order to keep them in our recruitment ecosystem.

        Our VAS portfolio is built around three key areas:

•

Recruitment process management.  We developed Talantix as a SaaS-based ATS designed to automate the talent acquisition function and improve process management. We expect that Talantix will cover all of the principal day to day recruitment needs of small to medium enterprises. In order to address the need for process automation and to streamline our customers' routine work, in 2017, we introduced our "Virtual Recruiter" product, which is aimed predominantly at mass recruitment vacancies, or positions with limited qualifications that are mainly in the retail segment and are characterized by high employee turnover. Virtual Recruiter uses our sourcing capabilities (both on and outside of our platform) and chat-bot technologies to help customers automatically attract a wide range of potential suitable candidates from various sources, run the pre-screening and scoring process, schedule interviews and more, all without any human involvement from the customer's side. We aim to continue developing this product and fully integrate it into our ATS solutions.



•

Penetration into HR budgets.  Our product development strategy is aimed at providing a fully integrated platform that provides employers with a "one-stop shop" solution for each step of the recruitment process. We provide our customers with branding and advertising tools and tailor-made HR consulting services in order to promote their brand and improve flow of relevant candidates. We offer auxiliary products such as an online salary comparison tool that helps our customers benchmark salaries offered in various industries of the local market. Based on extensive data, our HR analytics tools assist our customers in monitoring and analyzing the job market and CVs and help make informed, timely decisions.



•

Alternative business models.  We also provide various alternative solutions for employers and professional recruiters, such as an aggregator that allows employers to find freelance HR specialists who can assist with short-term or one-time assignments. Our Virtual Recruiter product uses a pay for performance pricing model that is particularly appealing to customers that are seeking to fill time sensitive, highly frequent vacancies, such as mass recruitment. We are also testing the scale of our ClickMe tool, which operates on a CPC model and allows our customers to reach a wider audience and increase their traffic by advertising on third party sites. We believe our ClickMe tool provides us with an advantage over our competitors due to our earlier adoption of a CPC model in Russia, and its development helps mitigate the risk and reduce costs in the event that our competitors switch to a CPC or cost-per-action model. Our ClickMe tool model can also be used for our other recruitment services, such as our Virtual Recruiter tool, as it allows our customers to effectively source candidates outside our traditional platform, eliminating the need for alternative channels.

57

Table of Contents

        We offer job seekers various fee-based career and promotional services, including CV search push-up, CV constructor and career advisory services.

        On May 6, 2019, we acquired a 25.01% stake in a rapidly developing HR technology company, LLC Skilaz ("Skillaz"), which automates routine recruiting processes by implementing complex built-to-suit integration projects. Skillaz's product offering complements Talantix as it targets larger, high-end market customers who have a sophisticated recruitment function. We also entered into option contracts to purchase an additional 40.01% ownership interest in Skillaz, which are exercisable through the period from June 1, 2020 until June 30, 2021 and subject to certain option exercise procedures. These options will be exercised if we decide that this product gains traction with our customers and fits with our long-term strategy.

Our Customers

        We sell our services predominantly to businesses that are looking for job seekers to fill vacancies inside their organizations. We refer to such businesses as "customers." In Russia, we divide our customers into (i) Key Accounts and (ii) Small and Medium Accounts, based on their annual revenue and employee headcount. We define "Key Accounts" as customers who, according to the Spark-Interfax database, have an annual revenue of 2 billion or more or a headcount of 250 or more employees and have not marked themselves as recruiting agencies on their page on our website, and we define "Small and Medium Accounts" as customers who, according to the Spark-Interfax database, have both an annual revenue of less than 2 billion and a headcount of less than 250 employees and have not marked themselves as recruiting agencies on their page on our website. Our website allows several legal entities and/or natural persons to be registered, each with a unique identification number, under a single account page (e.g., a group of companies). Each legal entity registered under a single account is defined as a separate customer and is included in the number of paying customers metric. Natural persons registered under a single account are assumed to be employees of the legal entities of that account and thus, are not considered separate customers and are not included in the number of paying customers metric. However, in a specific reporting period, if only natural persons used our services under such account, they are collectively included in the number of paying customers as one customer.

        On rare occasions when information from the Spark-Interfax database is not available, we define Key Accounts as customers who have subscribed to our CV database for 180 or more consecutive days at any point since their initial registration.

        Information from the Spark-Interfax database may change from time to time as companies file their new financial and other reports every year. As a result, a customer may be included in a different customer group in a subsequent accounting period.

        We also derive a small portion of our revenue from the provision of our services to: (i) recruiting agencies that are looking for job seekers on behalf of their clients, (ii) job seekers who are willing to pay for premium services, such as promoting their CV in the search results and (iii) online advertising agencies, all of which we refer to collectively as "other customers." We served approximately 253,000, 322,000 and 351,000 paying customers in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

        We operate in all regions of Russia, and in terms of revenue contribution, the majority of our customers are located in the Moscow and St. Petersburg regions. However, the share of customers from other regions continues to grow. We believe this regional expansion provides a substantial growth opportunity due to the growing numbers of emerging businesses, increasing internet penetration and online recruitment services adoption throughout Russia.

58

Table of Contents

        The following table provides a breakdown of our customer base by type of customer account, as a percentage of revenue for a year indicated:

        The following table provides a breakdown of our customer base by type of customer account and by region, as a percentage of revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020:

        In the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, we had 10,736, 11,125 and 11,801 Key Accounts customers in Russia, respectively. In the same periods, we had 222,843, 285,300 and 314,845 Small and Medium Account customers in Russia, respectively. We maintain long-term relationships with our customers, particularly our Key Accounts customers.

        We have a highly diversified customer base, particularly in Russia. Our top 10 customers represented 1.7% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020. Our customers also represent a broad range of industries, including retail, IT, construction and finance, resulting in balanced exposure to the economies of the Russian markets in which we operate.

        We use average revenue per customer ("ARPC") to track the average revenue we receive per customer during a specified period. ARPC is calculated by dividing revenue from customers during a specific period by the number of customers who received paid services during the same period. We calculate ARPC separately for Key Accounts and for Small and Medium Accounts. ARPC is impacted by the type of customer and the duration of our relationship with our paying customers. Key Accounts purchase higher usage of our services and typically purchase longer subscriptions. Small and Medium Accounts purchase less usage of our services or purchase shorter or one-off subscriptions. As a result, an increase in Key Accounts typically results in a higher ARPC while an increase in Small and Medium Accounts typically results in a lower ARPC. In addition, newer customers tend to purchase less usage and therefore, lower priced services, resulting in a lower ARPC, whereas more established customers typically purchase more usage, and therefore, higher priced services, resulting in a higher ARPC. The following tables provide a breakdown of our ARPC by type of customer account:

59

Table of Contents

Competition

        We are the largest player in the Russian online recruitment market in terms of CVs and job postings on the platform and offer the most comprehensive package of HR and recruiting services, supported by the largest CV database, a well-recognized brand and a growing base of job postings, as well as by our ability to attract new customers and retain existing ones. We believe that our scale and position in the Russian online recruitment market provide a competitive edge over other market participants and help us successfully sustain and compete for additional market share.

        The Russian online recruitment market is characterized by a dynamic competitive landscape and ongoing technological evolution. We face competition mainly from Russian online job portals, online classifieds platforms with presence in the jobs vertical and offline media. Our key competitors include Russian online recruitment services providers such as SuperJob.ru and Rabota.ru, who also offer access to CV databases and job posting services. In December 2020, we completed the acquisition of Zarplata.ru, a former competitor, as part of our growth strategy to strengthen our market positions in regions of Siberia and Ural. As part of its broader strategy of expanding its ecosystem, Sberbank, Russia's largest commercial bank, acquired Rabota.ru in 2019. During 2020, Sberbank has rebuilt Rabota.ru's tech platform, revitalized its brand, started active marketing campaign and partially integrated it in Sberbank's financial network. In March 2021, Rabota has introduced a free ATS system "SberHiring" which allows to automate the hiring process.

        In addition, we face competition from the large Russian general classifieds company Avito, which is focused on blue collar job seekers and small businesses, monetizing primarily through a fee-per-job posting model. Our former shareholder, Mail.Ru, runs its classifieds business under the "Youla" brand and in 2018, launched a job aggregation model under this brand, and later in the summer of 2018, allowed employers to post job vacancies directly on its site for free, and it is uncertain how this could affect the overall competitive climate. In 2019, Mail.Ru acquired the mobile-first, geo-based recruitment service Worki, which focuses on the blue collar segment, in 2021 has rebranded it as VK Jobs with integration in VKontakte social network. Yandex, another well-established internet player in Russia, is currently present in the recruitment market via an aggregator platform Yandex.Rabota and launched its horizontal classifieds business, Yandex Ads, in November 2020. Yandex.Talents, a recruitment chat bot that automates communication with candidates was closed shortly before launch of Yandex Ads. Several new specialized HR technology companies are bringing new technologies to recruitment functions and could challenge the automation of certain recruitment related functions and have emerged as new players, which could gain a larger presence in the market. In certain geographies and specific segments, we compete mainly with offline media, such as local newspapers with a jobs classifieds section.

        Our international competitors include, or may in the future include, global professional networks, such as LinkedIn, job portals and aggregators, such as Indeed, HR technology companies and players who operate adjacent business models, including social networks, such as Facebook, and search engines, such as Google, who recently introduced its enhanced job search user function called "Google for Jobs" in Russia. The competition from international players is currently limited, given that Russia is perceived as a market with strong domestic internet players, as well as Russia's regulatory regime, compliance with which entails significant investments and costs, such as the requirement to store personal data of Russian citizens within Russia as prescribed by the Law on Personal Data. See "—Regulation." Notably, access to LinkedIn's resources in Russia was blocked by the Roskomnadzor in November 2016 as a result of LinkedIn's failure to comply with this regulation. We believe we are advantageously positioned against our indirect competitors, such as social networks and search engines.

        Because our CV database, traffic to our website and the range of additional services for employers exceed those of our competitors, we view premium pricing of our services to be justified and sustainable. We have historically been able to retain our customers and attract new ones while periodically increasing the prices for our services.

60

Table of Contents

        The main monetization model adopted in the Russian online recruitment market is either providing paid access to a CV database, charging a fee per job posting or a combination thereof. Should some international players, such as Indeed, expand their operations in Russia and propose to the market an alternative monetization model adopted elsewhere, such as CPC, we might be forced to change our business model accordingly. However, we believe that with successful introduction of our ClickMe product, which operates on the cost-per-click (CPC) model, we are well positioned and prepared for such challenges.

        The competition in Human Capital Management (HCM) services is largely fragmented and differs across various types of services. Currently, key competitors in broader HCM space are large international, such as Oracle and SAP, and local, such as 1C and IBS, IT service providers, while future competition may arise from growing HR technology start-up companies, as well as new developing business and monetization models, such as recruiting chat bots or advertising agencies, providing recruiting services on cost-per-acquisition basis.

Sales and Marketing

        Our sales and marketing efforts are focused on increasing job seeker traffic, promoting our brand name and further establishing our reputation as the leading recruitment platform in Russia. We employ a diverse mix of marketing and communications channels to attract and retain customers, and we are not dependent on any single marketing channel. For the year ended December 31, 2020, we acquired approximately 80% of customers that were new to our platform by using free marketing channels, according to our internal data. In the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, our advertising spend was 940 million, 1,047 million and 1,105 million, or 15.4%, 13.4% and 13.3% of our total revenue, respectively, with roughly half of total spent on digital advertising (including search engines and social media), one-third on TV advertising and the rest on other marketing channels (including outdoor and other offline advertisements). We also use different advertising channels to target our regional markets, which we adapt to each region's evolving needs, such as using offline advertising in one region versus digital marketing in another.

        According to our internal data and Google Analytics as of December 2020, 91% of our website traffic came from free marketing sources, such as a user typing our name into a search engine, organically typing our name into a browser that takes a user directly to our website, by email distributions to our registered users or through referrals, where a current user refers a new user to our website. Only 9% of our website traffic came from paid advertising, such as CPC or meta search, during the same period, and our TV advertising campaigns promote awareness and help generate more traffic through free marketing sources.

Job seekers

        We target job seekers primarily through digital marketing, TV and outdoor advertising, and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns has been demonstrated by the increase in the incoming traffic from our target group. We focus our advertising efforts on attracting job seekers, which, in turn, attracts more paying customers to our platform.

Small and Medium Accounts

        Small and Medium Accounts represent a large market opportunity for us, and we continuously focus on increasing our brand awareness with these customers. Our various marketing campaigns, such as telemarketing and search engine advertising, are targeted at these customers, promoting our reputation, increasing our brand awareness and educating our audience about the existence of online recruiting. In addition, our job seeker TV marketing campaigns also have proven to attract more Small and Medium Accounts customers directly. We also have 104 sales professionals who are dedicated to selling services to Small and Medium Accounts as of December 31, 2020.

61

Table of Contents

Key Accounts

        We maintain close contact with our Key Accounts customers through our participation in industry conferences and events and by providing various educational services, such as HR webinars and online education, which help Key Accounts customers use our products more effectively. In addition, 78 members of our sales team representatives cater to the needs of our Key Accounts customers on a daily basis as of December 31, 2020. With our established customers, we promote our portfolio of HCM services to increase customer engagement and customer retention, which continue to be the driving forces behind our growth.

        We extensively test and measure the effectiveness of our marketing strategies by both customer type and region and adjust our spending accordingly. We also monitor the marketing activity of our competitors, including by market segment and customer type, to effectively adjust our marketing mix. We collect and analyze vast amounts of data to assess our performance and ensure efficient spending, and our marketing strategy is constantly evolving to address the developing needs of our market.

Sales function

        We believe that our sales function represents a significant competitive advantage and differentiating factor that sets us apart from our competitors, and our sales force is comprised of highly skilled, versatile professionals who have strong regional presences combined with our well-developed sales and support processes through our customer relationship management ("CRM") platform and other predictive analysis tools.

        As at December 31, 2020, we had a total of 226 employees on our sales force, 182 of which are in Russia and 44 of which are in other countries. Our sales force consists of 168 sales specialists and 14 sales supervisors. The following table demonstrates our number of sales employees broken down by region:

        Most of our customers are self-served and use our platform without any interaction with the salesforce. When customers require support from the sales force, we interact with them at every point of contact on our platform, from registration and initial product introduction to recurring service use. A new customer first interacts with our registration group, which consists of 38 people based in Yaroslavl who are responsible for client verification and fraud prevention. The registration group inputs key data and ensures an accurate and smooth onboarding process. Then, our telesales team, which consists of 64 people based in Yaroslavl, takes over, and the customer is assigned to a sales manager depending on its region of operations. Next, the customer is moved to the customer development team, who assigns the customer to the Small and Medium Accounts team, or to the Key Accounts coverage teams. These specialized sales teams cater to the specific type of customer, depending on their needs. The Key Accounts group consists of 20 people based in Moscow, 8 people based in St. Petersburg and 37 people in 9 other regional offices, which maintain personalized interactions. Our Key Accounts group provides high quality, individualized service to each customer. We also have a separate team of sales account managers who proactively work to acquire new corporate customers. Our revenue per sales account manager for Key Accounts grew from 36.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2019 to 45.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Additionally, our CRM notification system powered by predictive analytics tools analyzes customer activity on our platform in real time

62

Table of Contents

and, based on predictive analytics, suggest relevant actions to our sales force, further enhancing our ability to proactively provide efficient, personalized service to each customer.

Our Platform

        Our users access our platform through desktop sites, mobile sites and mobile applications. Our back-end technology, built on a Java base and PostgreSQL database, is consistently used in all front-end interfaces, to promote the logical consistency and relevance of data. For the desktop version of our site, we use standard web technologies and an adaptive layout to work on mobile and tablet devices in addition to mobile applications and our mobile site. Our customers predominantly use our desktop platform where they can access full employer functionality, but both job seekers and employers are increasingly turning to mobile devices to access our platform. In terms of unique monthly average users, for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, 72% and 71%, respectively, of our traffic came from mobile devices.

        Our mobile platform expands our footprint and complements our desktop platform. Our platform is available through a mobile version of our website, and via iOS, Android and Windows Phone applications. Initially outsourced, we moved the development of our applications in-house in 2013, in order to better control the quality of our apps and respond to evolving customer needs.

        Our iOS and Android applications are also becoming increasingly popular, with the number of cumulative downloads since launch of our job seeker applications in the table below.

        Our mobile applications are designed to respond to the developing needs of our users, and we have separate versions designed for job seekers and employers. Our job seeker applications are fully functional and support all activity from registration to interaction between the job seeker and employer. Most employers work with our desktop platform while using our mobile platform as a second, complementary screen. Job seekers account for the majority of our mobile traffic.

        Our application is ranked among the top applications on app store-generated lists for business-related free applications in both the iOS and Android application stores in Russia. Job seekers using our mobile applications typically return more frequently than those accessing our platform via desktop sites, and for the twelve week period between November 29, 2020 to February 20, 2021, retention of these users was approximately six times higher than on our desktop site. In addition to receiving updates, job seekers using our applications also receive push notifications based on the data they provided and certain behavioral traits. For example, job seekers may receive notifications about newly posted vacancies that may be of interest to them based on their previous search patterns. These personalized messages assist in increasing our job seeker retention rate. As of December 31, 2020, 74% of registered job seekers used our mobile platform only (including both mobile website and applications), while 15% used the desktop only. A significant share of registered job seekers (46% in December 2020) are using only our mobile applications. We continuously enhance job seeker experience on our mobile platform in order to improve conversions of mobile traffic into applications from job seekers.

        Some of our Key Accounts customers can interact with our services through paid access to our API interface, which allows them, for example, to create job postings and process applications.

63

Table of Contents

Technology and Intellectual Property

        We design, test and update our website and develop our proprietary solutions in-house. We have developed our infrastructure to be highly agile and scalable, allowing us to efficiently expand our product portfolio and enter new market segments, without compromising quality or customer continuity. Our site experienced 99.92% average uptime for the year ended December 31, 2020. We also use well-known and proven open source tools rather than third-party proprietary tools to eliminate dependency on any third-party vendor.

        As of December 31, 2020, our services were supported and enhanced by a team of 176 experienced and dedicated product development and system administration employees with in-depth knowledge of information technologies and online recruitment. We have grown this team from 134 to 151 to 176 employees, as of December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. We also provide ongoing education to our product development team to ensure that our team is up to date on new technologies and advances in our markets. Our development team is responsible for product innovation, testing, user experience improvements, search engine optimization and online advertising. The number and the quality of new technology releases from our development team is constantly rising, with the number of technological bugs per release consistently declining. For example, we had 0.45 bugs per release in 2019, which we decreased to 0.29 bugs per release in 2020. We have been able to develop innovative and effective products and services to meet the evolving needs of our customers, and we plan to continue to strengthen our development function.

Artificial Intelligence

        Our AI uses machine-learning algorithms to analyze the data provided by our users as well as user behavior to offer job seekers and employers better functionality and enhanced service levels. For example, our Machine Learning Recommendation System provides job seekers with suggested relevant vacancies while offering employers recommendations based on their previous activity on the website. These recommendations are provided to users via email or directly on the homepage while browsing, allowing them to more efficiently utilize our services. Our Machine Learning Ranking System uses a variety of criteria to rank applicants for a job vacancy and provides employers with an ordered list of relevant suggestions. Our Search System uses data collected from CVs and job postings to improve search results. Using hundreds of criteria, our Search System sorts search results based on the probability of application. Recently, we were granted a patent for our Machine Learning Candidate Recommendation System, and we aim to seek patent protection for all of the components of our Machine Learning Systems.

        Our AI system also efficiently assists with our CV moderation process. We evaluate and approve each CV submitted to our database to ensure quality, and for the year ended December 31, 2020, all of the CVs submitted to our database were screened by our AI and heuristics system, with on average approximately 70% of CVs receiving approval from our AI to be posted on our database without the need for further human action.

        AI improves the conversion of users to registered users, the conversion of registered users to those who upload their CV to our database, as well as the conversion of users in our CV database to submit applications for a posted vacancy. Our AI improves the functionality and effectiveness of our products, driving our revenue while providing our customers with high quality service. During 2020, our AI systems on average facilitated approximately 361,000 relevant vacancy applications and views of

64

Table of Contents

employers contact details daily, which increased by 175% compared to 2019. Our development team focuses on improving our AI Smart Matching Systems.

User interface and user experience

        We developed our platform to provide users with a simple and clear interface, and we are constantly optimizing our interface to improve the user experience at each stage. We have a bespoke customized interface for different groups of customers (anonymous users, applicants, paying customers and prospective customers). We streamline our platform by providing simplified CV forms, click-on fields for data input rather than empty fields, reducing the number of required fields in forms and customizing our interface for different users. Our simple but smart interface improves our conversion of users to registered users and of registered users to those who upload a CV, and these conversions increase the attractiveness of our platform to customers. In 2019, we modified the first time user experience for our mobile apps and adopted a simpler, more intuitive approach to interactions in order to fully optimize user engagement and encourage conversions. We are developing a sequenced "call-to-action" approach in our mobile apps that will drive users through a funnel to the desired action.

Our technology infrastructure

        We host our platform at two data centers in Moscow, and we have two backup servers located at these data centers and one backup server located at our offices in Moscow. We also have one backup storage facility at the headquarters of our key operating subsidiary in Moscow. We have designed our websites, applications and infrastructure to be able to support high traffic volume. Our average uptime has exceeded 99% since 2017, with an average uptime of 99.92%, 99.94% and 99.92% for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. With network bandwidth of 20 gigabits per second, our infrastructure offers significant headroom, well in excess of our current outgoing traffic needs of around 4 gigabits per second. Our platform is also more than capable of handling a peak load, which was estimated to be approximately 7,000 requests per second that our platform was able to handle during one of our busiest traffic periods in November 2020. Further, we continuously monitor and stress test our traffic and storage capacities through conducting heavy stress tests of 10,000 requests per second, and we maintain a predictable load limit of approximately 11,260 requests per second. We conduct these tests and monitor our infrastructure capabilities in order to continue constantly grow and

65

Table of Contents

upgrade our platform. Since 2003, we have processed cumulatively over 1 billion job applications, and we currently process about 1 million applications per day.

Our intellectual property

        We own our domain names and trademarks relating to the design and content of our website, including our brand name and various logos and slogans. As of February 2021, we held 107 registered trademarks in Russia, Cyprus, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other countries in which we operate, including Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, including our name and certain marks associated with each project. We also held 4 database certificates, 1 utility patent and 3 design patents, all registered in Russia.

Security and Data Protection

        We have built a multi-level system to protect our data, as it is the backbone of our business. We protect data by a combination of processing procedures and technology tools. Only a limited number of technical specialists are granted access to our data servers, and they handle our data using encrypted data transmission channels, which are accessible only with a key. Most of our developers do not have a direct access to our production servers, and we use a separate security system to monitor employee activity and data leakage.

        We protect our server infrastructure from external hacker attempts by locating the servers within an internal network that is isolated from the internet and protected by two firewalls. The system of user authentication on the site includes monitoring of suspicious activity and protection from brute force attacks. Passwords for user authentication are stored by a special adaptive cryptographic function, which prevents them from being used even in the event of data leakage. We also protect the platform against external denial-of-service attacks with a system that, in the event of an attack, filters suspicious traffic.

        In addition, we conduct regular tests for any internal or external unauthorized access to our systems and correct any irregularities.

Regulation

        We are subject to a number of laws and regulations in Russia and other jurisdictions that regulate data protection and information security and advertising services.

Intellectual Property Regulation

        The Civil Code (Part IV) is the basic law in Russia that governs intellectual property rights, including their protection and enforcement. According to it, the software and technologies that we develop internally generally do not require registration and enjoy legal protection simply by virtue of being created and either publicly disclosed or existent in a certain material form. In addition, we obtain proprietary rights to materials that are subject to copyright protection and that are created for us on the basis of agreements with the authors of such materials. Also, subject to compliance with the requirements of the Civil Code, we are deemed to have acquired any copyrights created by our employees during the course of their employment with us and within the scope of their job functions, and have the exclusive rights to their further use and disposal.

        Under Russian law, the registration of copyrighted materials is not required. Software may be registered by a copyright holder, at its discretion, with the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, or Rospatent, but such registration is not customary.

        Only trademarks and patents for inventions, utility models and industrial designs require mandatory registration with Rospatent. Trademarks registered abroad under the Madrid Agreement

66

Table of Contents

Concerning the International Registration of Trademarks dated April 14, 1891 and/or the Protocol to the Agreement dated June 27, 1989, have equal legal protection in Russia as locally registered trademarks. Our main brands are registered as trademarks in Russia, the CIS and several other countries where we operate.

        The Civil Code generally provides for the legal protection of trademarks registered with Rospatent. In addition, in accordance with the Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (Madrid, 1891) and protocols thereto, Russia protects trademarks registered with the World Intellectual Property Organization if international registration of such trademarks extends to Russia. Upon the registration of a trademark, Rospatent issues a certificate of registration of the trademark, which is valid for 10 years from the date on which the application for registration was filed. This term may be extended for another 10 years an unlimited number of times. The certificate of registration of a trademark is issued with respect to certain classes of goods or services of the International Classification of Goods and Services, which means that the trademark is not protected if it is used for other types of goods or services that are not covered by the certificate of registration. In the absence of registration (i) the entity using the designation may not be able to protect its trademark against unauthorized use by a third party; (ii) if a third party has previously registered a trademark similar to the designation in question, then the entity may be held liable for unauthorized use of such trademark. The transfer of intellectual property rights pursuant to agreements for assignment of rights to a trademark, franchising agreements, license agreements and pledge agreements are subject to registration with Rospatent. Failure to comply with the registration requirement results in such transfer being treated as non-existent, and use of the relevant intellectual property in the absence of registration of the relevant transfer may trigger civil, administrative or criminal liability.

        The Civil Code recognizes a concept of a well-known trademark, i.e. a mark which, as a result of its widespread use, has become well known in association with certain goods among the relevant consumers in Russia.

        Well-known trademarks enjoy more legal benefits than ordinary trademarks—these include:

•

broader coverage—an owner of a well-known trademark may exercise its exclusive rights in association with goods beyond those for which the relevant trademark was originally registered, provided that the use of an identical or confusingly similar trademark by a third party would cause consumers to associate the third party's trademark with the owner of the well-known trademark and would affect the legitimate interests of the owner of the well-known trademark; and



•

an unlimited registration period-unlike the ordinary trademarks (which can be registered for 10 years and renewed for each subsequent 10 years period an unlimited number of times), the well-known trademarks registration generally remains effective for an unlimited period of time.



•

In order to register a mark as a well-known trademark, a person using the mark must submit the relevant application to Rospatent, together with certain documents including evidence that the relevant mark has become well known (such as the results of consumers surveys, documentary evidence of costs incurred for the advertising of the mark, etc.). Rospatent must take a decision on the application within 10 months, but this period may be extended subject to the regulator's requests for and consideration of additional documents and/or clarifications from the applicant.

        The application may be denied in the following circumstances:

•

the applicant has not provided the documents evidencing that the relevant mark has become well known; or

67

Table of Contents

•

the relevant mark has become well known after the priority date of another person's trademark which is identical or confusingly similar with the relevant mark and which has been registered for the use in respect of similar goods.

        The mark is recognized as a well-known trademark from the date of its registration (i.e. its entry into the register of well-known trademarks).

Advertising Regulation

        The principal Russian law governing advertising is the Federal Law of the Russian Federation No. 38-FZ "On Advertising" dated March 13, 2006, as amended (the "Advertising Law"). The Advertising Law provides for a wide array of restrictions, prohibitions and limitations pertaining to contents and methods of advertising.

        Set forth below is a non-exhaustive list of types and methods of advertising that are prohibited regardless of the advertised product and the advertising medium:

•

advertising that may induce criminal, violent or cruel behavior;



•

advertising that judges or otherwise humiliates those who do not use the advertised product;



•

use of pornographic or indecent materials in advertising;



•

use of foreign words that may lead to the advertising being misleading;



•

statements that the advertised product has been approved by state or municipal authorities or officials;



•

depiction of smoking and alcohol consumption;



•

advertising of healing properties of a product that is not a registered medicine or medical service; and



•

omission of material facts that leads to advertising being misleading.

        The law also prohibits advertisements for certain regulated products and services without appropriate certification, licensing or approval. Advertisements for products such as alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, baby food, financial instruments or securities and financial services, as well as incentive sweepstakes and advertisements aimed at minors, must comply with specific rules and must in certain cases contain specified disclosure.

        Russian advertising laws define and prohibit, among other things, "unfair," "untrue" and "hidden" advertising (i.e. advertising that influences consumers without their knowledge). Advertising based on improper comparisons of the advertised products with products sold by other sellers is deemed unfair. It is also prohibited to advertise goods which may not be produced and distributed under Russian law.

        The Advertising Law, as well as the Competition Law, restricts unfair competition in terms of information flow such as: (i) dissemination of false, inaccurate, or distorted information that may inflict losses on an entity or cause damage to its business reputation; (ii) misrepresentation with respect to the nature, method, and place of manufacture, consumer characteristics, quality and quantity of a commodity or with respect to its producers; (iii) incorrect comparison of the products manufactured or sold by it with the products manufactured or sold by other entities; (iv) sale of commodities in violation of intellectual property rights, including trademarks and brands; or (v) illegal receipt, use, and disclosure of information constituting commercial, official or other secret protected by law.

        The Advertising Law does not specifically regulate display advertising, such as pop-up ads appearing on third-party websites based on user activity data, however, it may be encompassed by notion of "telecom" advertising and, therefore, trigger the application of the Advertising Law and its

68

Table of Contents

provisions on necessity of consent. The consent should be executed in a form that allows to ascertain the fact that such consent was obtained. In some cases, violation of the Advertising Law can lead to civil actions or administrative penalties that can be imposed by the FAS. As required by the Advertising Law, the sender of ads is required to receive the recipient's prior consent before any dissemination by e-mail.

Privacy and Personal Data Protection Regulation

        We are subject to laws and regulations regarding privacy and protection of the user data, including the Personal Data Law. The notion of "personal data" under Russian law includes any data which relates (directly or indirectly) to an identified or identifiable individual. There is no closed list of information which denotes personal data and any data (or set of data) which identifies a specific individual is treated as personal data. Typically name and contact details are considered to be personal data. The amendments to the Personal Data Law (which entered into force on March 1, 2021) set forth new rules on processing of a specific type of personal data, being personal data which are made available to the general public (the "Relevant Data"). Relevant Data would comprise user profiles which are publically available.

        Russian law uses the term "data operator" to denote a person who determines the scope and purposes of the processing (this notion is equivalent to the notion of the "data controller" under the GDPR). Russia also has a notion of "person involved into the data processing by the data operator" which is equivalent to the notion of "data processor" under the GDPR.

        The Personal Data Law, among other things, requires, subject to a limited number of exceptions, that an individual provide specific, informed and conscious consent to any processing (i.e. any action or combination of actions performed on personal data, including the collection, recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, use, transfer (distributing, providing or authorizing access to), blocking, deleting and destroying) of his/her personal data. In respect of most types of data, the Personal Data Law does not require the consent to be in writing (under the Personal Data Law, "in writing" means hand-written or subject to qualified electronic signature) but requires that the consent be in a form that, from an evidential perspective, sufficiently attests to that the data subject.

        The consent must be in writing in certain cases, including: (i) where the processing relates to special categories of personal data (regarding the data subject's race, nationality, political views, religion, philosophical beliefs, health conditions or intimate information); (ii) where the processing of personal data relates to any biometrics; (iii) cross-border transfers to a state that does not provide adequate protection of rights of subjects (e.g. under Russian law, the United States is one of such states); and (iv) the certain types processing of an employee's personal data, etc. The written consent of subjects must meet a number of formal requirements and must be signed by holographic or electronic signature.

        The Relevant Data can only be processed/transferred to third parties to the extent there is a consent of the data subject (the consent shall be in the form to be prepared by Roskomnadzor, the Russian data protection authority). The data subject may specify (in such consent) certain restrictions on data processing (such restrictions can, however, not apply to processing in state or public interest). In the absence of consent, the data controller cannot disclose the Relevant Data to third parties or otherwise process it. The burden of proof in respect of receipt of consent to processing of the Relevant Data lies with the data controller which is processing data. In the absence of the consent, the data controller can process the Relevant Data internally (i.e. without transfer to third parties), only if the data subject directly provided the Relevant Data to such data controller.

        The Personal Data Law also provides for the right to withdraw consent, in which case the person processing personal data has the obligation to destroy the data relating to the relevant subject. The new rules with respect to the Relevant Data also allow the data subject to demand that the data controller/

69

Table of Contents

third parties cease to process his/her Relevant Data. Unless the processing is stopped upon receipt of the relevant request, the data subject can oblige the data controller to stop the processing through the court proceedings. The rules do not apply to processing by the Russian state authorities.

        By accepting our offer, users consent to the processing of their personal data by clicking an icon indicating their consent to the offer. Once the form of consent to be prepared by Roskomnadzor is publicly available, we will assess the need to make any changes to our form of consent.

        According to the Personal Data Law, personal data operators are required to conduct certain types of processing ("restricted processing actions") of personal data of Russian citizens (when gathering such personal data) with the use of Russian databases (this obligation is referred to the "Russian data localization rules"). These types of such "restricted processing actions" include recording, systematization, accumulation, storage, clarification (update, modification) and extraction/download. The Roskomnadzor comments prohibit parallel input of gathered personal data into a Russian information system and a foreign-based system. These data may be transferred abroad by way of cross-border transfer from a Russian-based system only (and subject to the rules on cross-border transfer described below).

        Russia also has restrictions on cross-border transfer of personal data, pursuant to which the transfer of personal data is allowed (subject to the rules on consent to processing in general described above) to countries which are either signatories to the Strasbourg Convention on Automated Processing of Personal Data 1981, or whitelisted by Roskomnadzor. If a country to which the transfer is made is neither of those (such as the United States), cross-border transfer is only permitted either subject to a written consent of the data subject specifying the relevant country, or for certain specific purposes, such as the carrying out of an agreement with the data subject (e.g. a service or employment agreement), protection of vital interests of data subjects, including safety, or a constitutional regime.

        The Yarovaya Law requires telecom providers and arrangers of information distribution by means of internet (the "arranger") to store metadata (information confirming the fact of receipt, transmission, delivery and/or processing of voice data, text messages, pictures, sounds, video or other communications). Arrangers are required to ensure such storage for a period of one year. As of July 1, 2018, the arrangers are required to store the contents of communications, including voice data, text messages, pictures, sounds, video or other communications for a period of six months. In December 2020, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation suggested delaying implementation of certain requirements on data storage for one year in light of the COVID-19 outbreak and related worsening in economic conditions. The term arranger denotes a person assuring the functioning of information systems and/or software which is used to receive, transmit, deliver and/or process electronic messages of an internet user.

        In addition, the Sovereign Internet Law provides certain requirements for the arrangers. In particular, arrangers are required to take part in practical trainings arranged by the Russian authorities and to provide the necessary assistance to the Russian investigative authorities. The Russian authorities are still adopting implementing legislation necessary to implement the Sovereign Internet Law.

        Failure to obtain consent or comply with the other rules of data privacy laws may lead to civil, criminal, disciplinary and administrative liability. The amount of fines is being constantly increased by the Russian legislations (currently the maximum fine is set forth for violation of the Russian data localization rules, as described above, and it equals 18,000,000). The persons processing personal data in violation of the rules are also obliged to terminate or procure the termination of any wrongful processing of personal data. The authorities are also be entitled to block access from Russia to the resources which process personal data in violation of the rules. A special register (Register of Infringers of Rights of the Personal Data Subjects) has been established to record information on the unlawful processing of personal data.

70

Table of Contents

Antimonopoly Regulation

        The Competition Law vests the FAS as the antimonopoly regulator with wide powers and authorities to ensure competition in the market, including prior approval of mergers and acquisitions, monitoring activities of for market players that occupy dominant positions, prosecution of any wrongful abuse of a dominant position, and the prevention of cartels and other anti-competitive agreements or practices. The regulator may impose significant administrative fines on market players that abuse their dominant position or otherwise restrict competition, and is entitled to challenge contracts, agreements or transactions that are performed in violation of the Competition Law. Furthermore, for systematic violations, a court may order, pursuant to a suit filed by the FAS, a compulsory split-up or spin-off of the violating company, and no affiliation can be preserved between the new entities established as result of such a mandatory reorganization. In December 2019, the FAS determined that our subsidiary, Headhunter LLC, together with our competitors SuperJob and RDV-Soft, are currently occupying dominant positions in the market of internet-based services related to ensuring information coordination between employees, employers and staffing agencies in Russia, and that Headhunter LLC's actions prohibit the use of third-party software that led to the restriction of competition on adjacent product markets (app stores). See also Item 3. Key Information "Risk Factors—Risks Relating to the Russian Federation and Other Markets in which We Operate—The FAS's determination that we hold a dominant position in the market where we operate, together with SuperJob and RDV-Soft (a company that operates the Rabota.ru recruiting website), and that we abused this dominant position through restricting access to our CV database for Stafori LLC's "Robot Vera" software may adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations."

        The Competition Law expressly provides for its extraterritorial application to transactions and actions which are performed outside of Russia but lead, or may have led, to the restriction of competition in Russia.

        The Competition Law provides for mandatory pre-approval by the FAS of mergers, acquisitions, company formations and certain other transactions involving companies which meet certain financial thresholds. Certain specific rules and thresholds are provided by the Competition Law in relation to pre-approval by the FAS of acquisitions of financial services providers, which, under the Competition Law, include credit institutions, but do not include payment agents. Different thresholds apply to transactions with other financial entities as targets.

        Under the Competition Law, if an acquirer has acted in violation of the merger control rules and, for example, acquired shares without obtaining the prior approval of the FAS, the transaction may be invalidated by a court order initiated by the FAS, provided that such transaction has led or may lead to the restriction of competition, for example, by means of strengthening of a dominant position in the relevant market.

        More generally, Russian legislation provides for civil and administrative liability for the violation of antimonopoly legislation. It also provides for criminal liability of company managers for violations of certain provisions of antimonopoly legislation.

C.  Organizational Structure

        Please refer to Note 27 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report for a listing of the company's significant subsidiaries, including name, country of incorporation and proportion of ownership interest.

D.  Property, Plant and Equipment

        The principal executive office of our key operating subsidiary is located at 9/10 Godovikova Street, Moscow, 129085, Russia. We also lease operating office space in Yaroslavl, Saint Petersburg, Voronezh,

71

Table of Contents

Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar, Sochi, Kazan, Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Rostov-on-Don and Vladivostok, Russia; Minsk, Belarus and Almaty, Kazakhstan. Our additions to property and equipment and intangible assets in the year ended December 31, 2020 were 4,332 million, and they primarily consisted of Goodwill, intangible assets and property and equipment, of 4,071 million acquired in a business combination (please refer to Note 8 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in the Annual Report for more information), and 105 million of leasehold improvements, furniture and equipment costs related mainly to renovation of our head office in Moscow which we completed in the second quarter of 2020.

Item 4A.    Unresolved Staff Comments

        None.

Item 5.    Operating and Financial Review and Prospects

        You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with the section entitled Item 3. "Key Information, A. Selected Financial Data," and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report. This discussion contains forward-looking statements and involves numerous risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those described in the Item 3. "Key Information, D. Risk Factors" section of this Annual Report. Actual results could differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

Overview

        We are the leading online recruitment platform in Russia and the CIS region and focus on connecting job seekers with employers. We offer potential employers and recruiters paid access to our extensive CV database and job postings platform. We also provide job seekers and employers with a value added services portfolio centered around their recruitment needs. Our brand and the strength of our platform allow us to generate significant traffic, over 91% of which was free for us as of December 2020, according to our internal data, and we were the sixth most visited job and employment website globally as of January 1, 2021, according to the latest available data from SimilarWeb. Our CV database contained 36.2 million, 41.8 million and 48.2 total CVs as of December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, and our platform hosted a daily average of approximately 559,000, 588,000 and 608,000 job postings in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, our platform averaged 20.0 million, 21.9 million and 22.5 million unique visitors per month, respectively, according to LiveInternet.

        Our user base consists primarily of job seekers who use our products and services to discover new career opportunities. The majority of the services we provide to job seekers are free. Our customer base consists primarily of businesses using our CV database and job posting service to fill vacancies inside their organizations.

        We were founded in 2000 and have successfully established a strong, trusted brand and the leading market position, which have enabled us to achieve significant growth in recent years. We had approximately 253,000, 322,000 and 351,000 paying customers on our platform for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. We have a highly diversified customer base, representing the majority of the industries active in the Russian economy.

        Our total revenue was 6,118 million, 7,789 million and 8,282 million in the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. During the same periods, our net income was 1,033 million, 1,581 million and 1,886 million, respectively. In addition to our growth, we have consistently maintained strong profitability.

72

Table of Contents

Impact of COVID-19

        The World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus ("COVID-19") a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. Governmental authorities around the world have implemented measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including shutdowns and "shelter-in-place" orders suggested or mandated by governmental authorities or otherwise elected by companies as a preventive measure. These measures have adversely affected workforces, our customers, economies and financial markets, and the pandemic has had a significant impact of the economies in all of our markets.

        Measures taken by the Russian government to curb spread of the disease, such as a lock-down in Moscow and a nation-wide "period of non-working days," led to a decrease in the number of job postings and the number of new CV database subscriptions in the second quarter of 2020. As a response to the decrease in revenue, we implemented temporary cost-cutting initiatives, including putting all non-essential hiring, capital expenditure and other expenses on hold. Following easing of restrictions in May 2020, we saw gradual recovery of our key performance indicators ("KPIs") in the third quarter of 2020. Although there was a spike in the number of new cases in the fourth quarter of 2020 that was comparable to that of a second quarter of 2020, less severe restrictions were put in place in Russia, and we did not experience similar decrease in our KPIs in the fourth quarter 2020.

        We have not seen a specific impact of COVID-19 on our financial position as at December 31, 2020. Recent developments in the first quarter of 2021, as of the date of this Annual Report, also do not indicate specific impact of COVID-19 on our financial position. Our financial position, results and liquidity may be affected in the future by any further adverse developments related to COVID-19. See Item 3.D "Risk Factors—Risks Relating to our Business and Industry—A regional or global health pandemic, including COVID-19, potential actions taken to contain a disease, and speed and extent of the recovery could severely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition due to impacts on our customers."

Segments

        For management purposes, we are organized into operating segments based on the geography of our operations. Our operating segments are "Russia," "Belarus," "Kazakhstan" and other countries. We divested the business through which we conducted operations in Ukraine in April 2018.

        On December 25, 2020, we acquired 100% of the issued charter capital in LLC "Zarplata.ru" ("Zarplata.ru"), a job classified platform with a strong footprint in certain Russian regions, such as Siberia and Ural, from Heart Shkulev Digital Regional Network B.V. As of December 31, 2020, operations of Zarplata.ru meet the criteria of a reportable operating segment; however, as the financial results of Zarplata.ru for the period from the acquisition date to December 31, 2020 were non-material, they are not included in the statement of income and comprehensive income for the year ended December 31, 2020, and are not included in the "Operating segments" note in our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2020.

        As each segment other than "Russia" individually comprises less than 10% of our revenue, for reporting purposes, we combine all segments other than Russia into the "Other segments" category in our financial statements.

        In addition, when reviewing our Russia segment, we disaggregate revenue in this segment by customer location (including large cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and other regions in Russia) and type of customer account (Key Accounts and Small and Medium Accounts) to review relevant key operating performance measures within each group.

73

Table of Contents

Key Indicators of Operating and Financial Performance

        Our management monitors and analyzes certain operating and financial performance indicators. This process ensures timely evaluation of the performance of our business and the effectiveness of our strategies, enabling our management to react promptly to the changing requirements of job seekers and customers and evolving market conditions. We believe that many online businesses monitor similar indicators, however, there are inherent challenges with respect to gathering and assessing the data underlying our performance indicators. See Item 3. "Key Information, D. Risk Factors—Risks Relating to Our Business and Industry—Real or perceived inaccuracies of our internally calculated or third-party sourced user metrics may harm our reputation and adversely affect our business and operating results."

Key Operating Performance Indicators

        We use the following key operating performance indicators to assess the performance of our online recruitment services, from which we generate substantially all of our revenue. These measures include the number of paying customers, the number of job postings on our websites, ARPC, the average number of UMVs to our website, and the number of CVs and visible CVs in our database.

        The following table sets forth our key operating performance indicators as of the dates (number of CVs and number of visible CVs) or for the periods indicated (number of paying customers, ARPC, daily average number of job postings and average UMVs):

74

Table of Contents

        We sell our services predominantly to businesses that are looking for job seekers to fill vacancies inside their organizations. We refer to such businesses as "customers." In Russia, we divide our customers into (i) Key Accounts and (ii) Small and Medium Accounts, based on their annual revenue and employee headcount. We define "Key Accounts" as customers who, according to the Spark-Interfax database, have an annual revenue of 2 billion or more or a headcount of 250 or more employees and have not marked themselves as recruiting agencies on their page on our website, and we define "Small and Medium Accounts" as customers who, according to the Spark-Interfax database, have both an annual revenue of less than 2 billion and a headcount of less than 250 employees and have not marked themselves as recruiting agencies on their page on our website. Our website allows several legal entities and/or natural persons to be registered, each with a unique identification number, under a single account page (e.g., a group of companies). Each legal entity registered under a single account is defined as a separate customer and is included in the number of paying customers metric. Natural persons registered under a single account are assumed to be employees of the legal entities of that account and thus, are not considered separate customers and are not included in the number of paying customers metric. However, in a specific reporting period, if only natural persons used our services under such account, they are collectively included in the number of paying customers as one customer.

        On rare occasions when information from the Spark-Interfax database is not available, we define Key Accounts as customers who have subscribed to our CV database for 180 or more consecutive days at any point since their initial registration and Small and Medium Accounts as customers who do not match these criteria.

        Information from the Spark-Interfax database may change from time to time as companies file their new financial and other reports every year. As a result, a customer may be included in a different customer group in a subsequent accounting period.

        We also derive a small portion of our revenue from the provision of our services to: (i) recruiting agencies looking for job seekers on behalf of their clients, (ii) job seekers who are willing to pay for premium services, such as promoting their CV in the search results and (iii) online advertising agencies, all of which we refer to collectively as "other customers." Each customer is assigned a unique identification number on our platform.

        Our revenue is driven primarily by the number of database subscriptions active in a period and the number of jobs postings on our website. In addition, our revenue is impacted by the frequency with which customers pay to refresh their job postings (where a customer pays for the same job posting again so that it appears at the top of the job posting list), pay for premium placement of their job posting (where a customer pays for their job posting to appear at the top of search results) or purchase other value added services, such as display advertisements.

        We calculate average revenue per customer ("ARPC") by dividing revenue from customers during a specific period by the number of customers who received paid services during the same period. In Russia, we calculate ARPC separately for Key Accounts and for Small and Medium Accounts. ARPC is impacted by the type of customer and the duration of our relationship with our paying customers. Key Accounts use our services more and typically purchase longer subscriptions. Small and Medium Accounts purchase less usage or purchase shorter or one-off subscriptions. As a result, an increase in Key Accounts typically results in a higher ARPC, while an increase in Small and Medium Accounts typically results in a lower ARPC. In addition, newer customers tend to purchase less usage and therefore, lower priced services, resulting in a lower ARPC, whereas more established customers typically purchase more usage, and therefore, higher priced services, resulting in a higher ARPC. In addition to the factors described above, ARPC in our other segments is also impacted by foreign exchange fluctuations as we translate local currency amounts into our reporting currency, the ruble.

        The number of "job postings" refers to the total daily average number of jobs advertised by our customers on our website during a specified period. The number of job postings shows the volume of

75

Table of Contents

job postings available to job seekers on our website on average during a period. It does not reflect the total number of actual vacancies filled or offered through our website during a period. Customers are primarily charged on a per posting basis or a flat fee subscription basis for a capped number of postings over a specific period of time. Customers may refresh job postings before the expiration of the 30 day standard display period for the same fee as the initial posting to generate more job seeker applications. An increase in the number of customers and number of job postings by these customers increases our ability to attract and retain job seekers.

        Our "average unique monthly visitors" ("average UMVs") refers to the average number of unique visitors to our website during a calendar month. The "number of CVs" refers to the number of CVs completed by job seekers and uploaded to our website following the completion of an automated or human-assisted pre-moderation process. Once a job seeker's CV has been uploaded to the website, he or she may choose to hide their CV while, for example, he or she is not actively searching for a job. A CV may be made visible again by a job seeker at any time. When a job seeker hides his or her CV, although it remains in our database and we may reach the job seeker with direct marketing efforts, it is not discoverable by our customers who have purchased a subscription to use our CV database. The "number of visible CVs" represents the number of CVs discoverable by our customers who have purchased a subscription to use our CV database. The number of CVs represents the total volume of data related to job seekers available to us, and the number of visible CVs represents the value of our services to our customers.

        We view average UMVs and the number of CVs as key indicators of growth in our brand awareness among job seekers and as measures of our ability to attract job seekers to register on our website. Historically, an increase in the average UMVs has resulted in an increase in the number of new registered job seekers, which in turn, has resulted in an increase in the number of CVs added to our database. Although we do not directly generate revenue from job seekers uploading their CVs to our database or replying to job postings, the size of our database is a key indicator of the scale of our platform, which enables us to attract new customers and encourages our existing customers to purchase additional services.

        The size and growth of the number of UMVs, the number of CVs and the number of jobs advertised increase the value we deliver to customers looking to fill their vacancies through our platform, resulting in an increase in the number of paying customers, ARPC and the growth of revenue from our online recruitment services. This growth is also driven by an overall expansion of the online recruitment market in Russia and the other countries in which we operate, our ability to retain customers and up-sell our services, and our efforts to attract new customers and job seekers. These efforts include continuously improving our website and other platforms to enhance the job seeker experience, tracking the effectiveness of our marketing and brand promotion activities and expanding into new market segments. In addition, during times of economic slowdown, we are usually able to grow the size of our CV database, which becomes even more attractive to our customers as the economy improves, enabling us to encourage our existing customers to purchase additional services as well as attract new customers due to the scale of our database.

76

Table of Contents

Key Financial Performance Indicators

Revenue by customer type

        The following table sets forth the revenue from our customers broken down by region for the periods indicated.

        We generated 93.2%, 92.6%, and 93.3% of our total revenue from our Russia segment for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. In this segment, we generated 39.4%, 36.7%, and 38.5% of total segment revenue for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, from our Key Accounts and 55.9%, 58.2%, and 56.3% of total segment revenue from Small and Medium Accounts for the same periods. Our Key Accounts are characterized by high customer retention rates, with 86% of customers who purchased our services in the year ended December 31, 2019 also purchasing our services in the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to 87% of customers who purchased our services in the year ended December 31, 2018 also purchasing our services in the year ended December 31, 2019. The number of our Small and Medium Accounts have historically grown faster than the number of our Key Accounts, as smaller businesses are increasingly discovering the efficiency and cost advantages of online recruiting and moving from offline forms of advertisements to online advertisements, assisted by our brand awareness campaigns. For the year ended December 31, 2020, this trend was muted by the COVID-19 pandemic and related government measures to curb its spread, which mostly affected our Small and Medium Accounts. Due to the nature of our business, a substantial portion of our customers pay upfront for subscriptions, resulting in substantial contract liabilities on our balance sheet.

        We believe that our revenue will continue to be driven by broad macroeconomic factors in Russia, such as the rate of general economic growth, the state of the Russian job market reflected in such metrics as the unemployment rate, and employee turnover. In addition, we expect our revenue to continue to be positively impacted by the ongoing structural shift from an "offline" to "online" HR environment and the increasing number of businesses using online advertisements. Although our revenue growth may slow down in a weakened economy, the growth in the number of UMVs on our website and the increase in the number of CVs in our database during a downturn positions us to grow when economic conditions improve, as we believe our leading platform has attracted and will continue to attract customers to post their job postings when they are searching for candidates.

77

Table of Contents

        We set the prices for access to our CV database based on the depth and breadth of access to our database and for job postings based on the volume of job postings our customers post on our website. The price of a subscription to our CV database is defined by the geographical and professional segment of the database to which a customer wishes to purchase access (for example, access to CVs of job seekers residing in Moscow and looking for a job in the professional area of marketing), the duration of the subscription, which can be one day, one week, two weeks, one month, three months, six months or one year, and (effective August 1, 2020) the number of jobseeker contact views included in the subscription. The price of the specific geographic and professional segments of the CV database is set according to the relative size of the database measured by the number of visible CVs (however, not always pro rata). The longer the duration of the subscription, the lower the price is per day.

        The following table sets forth the revenue we generate per customer type, broken down by region as a percentage of our total revenue for the periods indicated.

Russia Segment

        Key Accounts Revenue.    Key Accounts in Russia accounted for 35.9% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020. Key Accounts tend to purchase higher volumes of services and more frequently use our additional value added services, such as ad displays and company-style branded pages than Small and Medium Accounts. Although the number of our Key Accounts has grown at a slower pace than Small and Medium Accounts over the last three years, we have been increasing our ARPC in this group consistently over the last three years through focus on monetization improvements, such as introduction of limits on the number of job seeker contact views in August 2020 in our new subscription contracts, which previously allowed customers to view an unlimited number of job seeker contact views over a subscription period. Revenue in our Key Accounts segment increased by 12.3% in the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the year ended December 31, 2019, as a result of a 6.1% increase in the number of paying customers and a 5.8% increase in the ARPC, mostly due to the increase in the prices. Within Key Accounts, we derived 26.0% and 9.8% of our total revenue from Moscow and St. Petersburg and other regions of Russia, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2020.

        We have observed that our Key Accounts were quite resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic due to reasons like the scale of their organizations and stickiness of our subscription business model. For instance, in the second quarter of 2020, when the impact of COVID-19 was the most visible in Russia,

78

Table of Contents

the number of paying customers in our Key Accounts segments decreased by 0.4%, and revenue in this customer group decreased by 6.1%, compared to the second quarter of 2019. The decrease in the number of paying customers and revenue in Moscow and St. Petersburg was offset by an increase in Other regions of Russia, as they were less impacted.

        We believe that we will be able to grow our revenue from our Key Accounts by enhancing monetization of existing customers as well as by increasing the number of customers in this segment, particularly in the other regions of Russia, coupled with increasing the number of Key Accounts who purchase our value added services, such as display advertisements and branded employer pages. See Item 4. "Information on the Company, B. Business Overview—Our Services—Human Resource Value Added Services" for additional information on our value added services. On August 1, 2020, we introduced limits on the number of job seeker contact views for our new CV database subscriptions. For example, our annual access to the "All Russia" geographic segment of the CV database is now limited to 9,000 job seeker contact views. A limit depends on durations of a subscription, and the longer the duration, the higher the limit. After reaching a limit included in a subscription, a customer would need to purchase an extension to view more job seeker contacts. An extension may be purchased together with the subscription depending on estimated usage. A "contact view" is an event where a customer un-hides the contact details of a job seeker on a CV. A customer may read through other sections of a CV, such as experience or education, before un-hiding a job seeker's contact details. In the year ended December 31, 2020, revenue from the CV view extensions was insignificant, as the limits did not affect existing subscriptions purchased before effective date August 1, 2020.

        Small and Medium Accounts Revenue.    Small and Medium Accounts in Russia accounted for 52.5% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020. Revenue in our Small and Medium Accounts segment increased by 3.8% in the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the year ended December 31, 2019, due to an increase in number of paying customers, which was partly offset by decrease in ARPC by 6.0% due to the decline in number of service units purchased per customer in a group. The number of customers in the Small and Medium Accounts segment grew by 10.4% in the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to the year ended December 31, 2019, mainly due to the growth in the number of customers in the Other regions of Russia. Within Small and Medium Accounts, we derived 30.5% and 22.0% of our total revenue from Moscow and St. Petersburg and other regions of Russia, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2020.

        The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on our Small and Medium Accounts was more visible than on our Key Accounts, as they purchase less long-term subscription products, revenue generated from these accounts is more directly related to usage and they were more impacted during "shelter-in-place" orders than larger organizations. For instance, in the second quarter of 2020, when the impact of COVID-19 was the most visible in Russia, the number of paying customers in our Small and Medium Accounts segments decreased by 22.1%, and revenue in this customer group decreased by 28.2%, compared to the second quarter of 2019. The decrease occurred both in Moscow and St. Petersburg and in Other regions of Russia, however, the Other regions of Russia were less impacted.

        We believe that we will be able to grow our revenue from Small and Medium Accounts by further promoting our brand with wide-scale TV, online and outdoor campaigns, offering competitive pricing on our products and retaining and migrating our Small and Medium Accounts customers to higher priced products over time. In addition, we are working to grow the number of our Small and Medium Accounts customers by increasing the number of CVs from blue collar job seekers in our database.

        Other Customers Revenue.    Other customers revenue is comprised of revenue from recruiters and ad agencies who purchase access to our CV database and advertising products, and job seekers who purchase a premium service such as CV highlight, which places their CV at the top of a search in our CV database. Other customers revenue accounted for 4.1% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2020.

79

Table of Contents

Other Segments

        We generated 6.7% of our total revenue from our other segments for the year ended December 31, 2020. Revenue in our Other segments was primarily earned from our operations in Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Operating costs and expenses (exclusive of depreciation and amortization)

        Our operating costs and expenses (exclusive of depreciation and amortization) consist primarily of personnel and marketing expenses. The following table sets forth our operating expenses as a percentage of our revenue for the periods indicated.

Personnel Expenses

        Our personnel expenses consist primarily of salaries and benefits to our development staff, who represent 22% of our total number of employees, and salaries and benefits of our sales team, who represent 27% of our total number of employees as of December 31, 2020. In addition to a fixed base salary, which the majority of our staff receive, our sales staff derive a substantial portion of their salary from commissions based on performance. For all periods presented, the majority of the compensation paid to our sales personnel was performance based.

80

Table of Contents

        We anticipate that our personnel expenses will continue to increase in absolute terms as we hire additional personnel and incur additional costs in connection with the expansion of our business operations.

        Our personnel expenses comprised 28.1%, 28.7% and 31.2% as a percentage of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

        Our personnel expenses, excluding share-based payments and related social taxes, and personnel expenses which form part of our IPO-related costs, SPO-related costs and transaction costs related to business combinations comprised 26.9%, 26.2% and 27.6% as a percentage of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

        Please see "Reconciliation of operating costs and expenses (exclusive of depreciation and amortization), the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure, to Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization)" elsewhere in this Annual Report.

Marketing Expenses

        We continue investing in our brand awareness in Russia with robust online, outdoor and TV advertising campaigns. Our total marketing expenses for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020 were 940 million, 1,047 million and 1,105 million, respectively.

        Marketing expenses vary from city to city, depending on local competition, our strategic objectives in each market and the marketing channels we use to support our growth and promote our brand. We plan to continue investing in marketing activities, including offline channels, to strengthen our brand recognition and grow our job seeker and customer base.

        As a result of our strategy to expand our business operations and create greater brand awareness, we expect that our marketing expenses will continue to increase in absolute terms as we invest in marketing in new and existing geographic areas. If we can leverage our strong brand and utilize the scalability of our business model, our marketing expenses may decrease as a percentage of our revenue. Our marketing expenses comprised 15.4%, 13.4% and 13.3% as a percentage of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

81

Table of Contents

Other general and administrative expenses

        Our other general and administrative expenses consist primarily of professional services, insurance costs and short-term office rent and maintenance costs. Our general and administrative expenses comprised 12.7%, 13.1% and 12.1% as a percentage of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Non-IFRS Measures and Other Financial Information

82

Table of Contents

        EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are used by our management to monitor the underlying performance of the business and the operations. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are used by different companies for differing purposes and are often calculated in ways that reflect the circumstances of those companies. You should exercise caution in comparing EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as reported by us to EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Net Income Margin as reported by other companies. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are unaudited and have not been prepared in accordance with IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles.

        EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) are not measurements of performance under IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles, and you should not consider EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin or Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) as alternatives to net income, operating profit or other financial measures determined in accordance with IFRS or other generally accepted accounting principles. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation. Some of these limitations are:

•

EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of

83

Table of Contents

Depreciation and Amortization) do not reflect our cash expenditures or future requirements for capital expenditures or contractual commitments,

•

EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) do not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs, and



•

the fact that other companies in our industry may calculate EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, EBITDA Margin, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income Margin and Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization) differently than we do, which limits their usefulness as comparative measures.

        We have provided a reconciliation below of net income, the most directly comparable IFRS measure, to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA.

84

Table of Contents

        We have provided a reconciliation below of net income, the most directly comparable IFRS measure, to Adjusted Net Income.

85

Table of Contents

86

Table of Contents

        Reconciliation of operating costs and expenses (exclusive of depreciation and amortization), the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure, to Adjusted Operating Costs and Expenses (Exclusive of Depreciation and Amortization):