Sergey Solonin is growing his presence in digital advertising, while his former partner Andrey Romanenko is making deals with Sberbank.
Qiwi, a payment and financial services provider in Russia and the CIS, has agreed to purchase RealWeb, a major digital marketing company. Qiwi will initially buy 78% and the remaining 22% within six months.
The deal with Qiwi has become possible for the beneficiaries of RealWeb, as their plans to sell to a major foreign player were hindered by the start of the NWO and new Western sanctions. It is likely that the sale will take place at a lower cost than previously anticipated.
Sergey Solonin, the main beneficiary of Kiwi and Kiwi Bank, is likely to be pleased with the deal as it will help him diversify the business by acquiring the largest player in the digital advertising market.
An examination of who stands to gain or lose from the merger of scandal-ridden Qiwi with a large marketing agency is provided in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent.
Before the deal, 25% of RealWeb was owned by the iTech Capital offshore investment fund. The group had five other co-owners – Vasily Lazuka, Maxim Vinogradov, Ivan Khmelevskoy, Emin, and Olesya Avetisyan.
Emin and Olesya Avetisyan, who are part of RealWeb, plan to work with Qiwi to develop the agency.
The list of founders of the advertising company IA Realweb LLC has not changed yet. The company is managed by LLC Management Company “Realweb”, with the same owners – Vasily Lazuka and Maxim Vinogradov. Olesya Avetisyan is the General Director.
Promoting Sberbank
RealWeb was one of the first to buy advertising in Telegram and also handles government contracts, including a 25 million ruble contract with Yumani LLC.
Yumani is an electronic payment service similar to Qiwi and is part of the Sberbank ecosystem. RealWeb, on behalf of Sberbank, was one of the first Russian government agencies to advertise on Telegram.
RealWeb has a good reputation and has engaged in advertising for Sberbank's Yumani service, which is part of the Sberbank ecosystem.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
And it seems that this is where the “dog is buried”. The deal between Qiwi and Realveba could have been facilitated by Sberbank, managed by German Gref. Where did such an assumption come from?
“Purse” by Solonin&Romanenko
The QIWI Group was established by Sergey Solonin, Boris Kim and Andrey Romanenko in 2007 after combining two payment systems – e-port and OSMP. In the same year, the “Personal Account” service started on QIWI terminals, which was later renamed “QIWI Wallet”.
The latter became nearly the main part of Romanenko's business empire and reportedly a preferred tool of dishonest businessmen of all kinds, who tried to withdraw their finances from under the close watch of control and supervisory authorities.
Currently, market insiders refer to Andrei Romanenko as the main thinker and recipient of the organization. But officially, he retired a long time ago. Now his partner Sergey Solonin owns 17% of the shares of Kiwi, and also possesses 60.4% of the total number of votes in the organization.
Kiwi has repeatedly tried to attribute the fame of the whole “cash empire”, supposedly built by Andrey Romanenko. In August 2015, the group's offices underwent extensive searches by the FSB. And these were not the first searches – with similar operational actions, the security forces came to the company in February of the same year. However, then no charges were brought against anyone.
By a strange coincidence, some time after the searches, Mr. Romanenko parted ways with his share in the company. At the same time, one of the former partners of Kiwi, Ildar Akhmetshin, told our publication that, in his opinion, Romanenko can still play a leading role in the organization. At the same time, he is engaged in completely different projects.
In particular, he became a co-founder of Evotor, a manufacturer of smart online cash registers and software. According to the company's own data, Evotor's share in the online cash register market in the small and micro business segment is 25%. And the point is that it was not the brainchild of Romanenko alone, but a joint venture with Sberbank under the leadership of German Gref.
However, after the start of the SVO and the introduction of many sanctions, Sberbank got rid of its stake in Evotor. RBC wrote about this. At the same time, the buyer was a company registered just a month before the transaction, and not bound by any sanctions. According to evil tongues, Romanenko and someone from the Gref team can be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Meanwhile, according to Andrei Romanenko’s former partner and colleague Ildar Akhmetshin, Romanenko could have his fortune and money for the new project earn money allegedly by working on a huge platform for cashing out and selling money. Akhmetshin calls such a platform “Kiwi”.
If you believe the words of Akhmetshin, at one time Andrey Romanenko allegedly squeezed out all the country's largest “cashers” from the market by working for the notorious former head of the Main Directorate for Economic Security and Anti-Corruption (GUEBiPK) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Sugrobov.
The latter in 2017, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for creating a criminal community, Kommersant wrote about this. Allegedly, after that, Qiwi became much more difficult to work due to changes in legislation and the actions of the Central Bank.
However, the group is still afloat. It can be assumed that Andrei Romanenko, having formally distanced himself from the Qiwi, could find a new influential and powerful ally in the person of German Gref.
Nod to the bank
But the Qiwi has own bank – “QIWI Bank”. And this bank is very doubtful, given the nature of Qiwi's work. As indicated on the website of Qiwi itself, the bank, like the Qiwi Group itself, is tied to a whole network of offshore companies, and Sergey Solonin has control and significant influence there.
Photo: Qiwi.com
At the same time, if you turn to the bank's financial indicators, you can find a lot of interesting things and ask yourself – why is the bank still “breathing” at all?
If you do not take the current year, according to information from February 2020 to February 2022, i.e. in two years, the bank lost 82% of net profit and almost 8% of all assets (more than 4 billion rubles). At the same time, the deposits of individuals during this time decreased by 95% – that is, the “physicists” simply fled. This may indicate serious problems in the bank, even with a formal increase in capital. title=””Kiwi Group” “nods” to Sberbank” type=”image/png” alt=””Kiwi Group” “nods” to Sberbank” />
Photo: Banki.ru
Of particular interest are the credit ratios of a financial institution. All three main indicators – H1, H2, H3 are in the red zone following the results of these two years. This means that Qiwi Bank has big problems. And support – even if “moral” – from such a strong player as Sberbank and German Gref would be very helpful. Apparently, this is what is happening? “nods” at Sberbank” type=”image/png” alt=”"Kiwi Group” “nods” at Sberbank” />
Photo: Banki.ru
The main question is where did the structure's net profit for two years go? After all, this is 82%, this is a lot of money. Have they ended up in some offshore of the same Romanenko or Corned beef?
In any case, now it will become much easier to win back the “negative”. With the acquisition of RealWeb and its digital empire, any setbacks and regulatory issues can be covered up. And in case of lack of money, always ask for a loan from Sberbank.
