Qiwi sold a 14.9% stake in Japanese electronics giant

A new partner has become an international corporation Mitsui. Agreement for the sale of shares was concluded in late December 2010, said today the president of Qiwi Andrei Romanenko. Mitsui has received 14.9% of the shares by the proportional reduction in proportion of existing shareholders: Mail.ru Group and Management Qiwi Ltd. The controlling stake is still at Qiwi, which currently owns 63.7% shares. Another 21.4% is concentrated in the hands of Mail.ru Group. As recognized by the General Director of Mitsui in Moscow Hiroshi Meguro, this figure was the result of the discussion, and it is completely arranged for them. He added that in future the company does not intend to increase the number of shares. The initiator of the transaction was the Japanese side. "We are focused on IT-market, especially in our company wanted to invest in emerging market", - explained his choice of general manager of Mitsui Yuychiro Hanava. Those conditions, which suggests Qiwi, are essential for the development of IT-technologies in the future will contribute to the development of the middle class in Russia and in other countries, he said. It is known that Qiwi also looking for a partner. "We would like to become our partner company with a worldwide reputation and a broad representation of different countries", - said Andrei Romanenko. Such a partnership arranged by both sides. "Long experience of Mitsui in the development of international business, including B2C areas will allow us to further strengthen its position in all countries of presence and enter new markets. Making a decision about the deal, we relied on the fact that support from the Mitsui our expansion into foreign countries will open up tremendous prospects for us "- added the head of Qiwi. To date, Mitsui is represented in 66 countries and operates in 15 sectors: from the development of natural resources, automotive and shipbuilding industries to logistics, financial performance and market consumer goods and services. Companies plan to jointly at an international level to master the market of instant payments. Until now in many countries, the main way to recharge is a scratch card, explained the situation Andrei Romanenko. In Russia, a couple of years ago did not know what instant payments, but now they account for about 93-94% of all payments. This year Qiwi plans to master the 7 countries: Brazil, USA, Latvia, Serbia, Slovakia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam. Recall that Qiwi Ltd is a market leader in payment systems, its monthly audience of 65 million people. The company was founded in 2007, and today it has 152 thousand points of payment in 15 countries.