Business
Investment in Unistream
Investment in Unistream.
About this update from Aurrigo International Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n Aurora Russia Limited\n30 November 2006\n\n\n30 November 2006\n\nAurora Russia Limited to acquire a 26% stake in Unistream, one of the leading\nmoney transfer companies in Russia\n\nAurora Russia Limited (the 'Company' or 'Aurora Russia'), the AIM-quoted\ninvestment vehicle established to make equity or equity-related investments in\nsmall and mid-sized private companies in Russia, announces that it has agreed to\ninvest the ruble equivalent of $20 million (£10.4 million) in cash for a 26%\nstake in Unistream Bank ('Unistream'), part of the UniAstrum Group. Unistream is\none of the leading money transfer companies in Russia with a market share,\nestimated by the Directors of Unistream to be approximately 25% of the volume of\nmoney transfers made to and from Russia during the first half of 2006.\n\nThis will be the third investment made by Aurora Russia since its admission to\nthe AIM Market in March 2006 having raised £75 million. Aurora has now committed\nor invested a total of £30.5 million (1) and the Company is actively pursuing\nfurther investment opportunities in the business, consumer and financial\nservices segments in Russia.\n\n\nAbout Unistream\n\nUniAstrum Bank ('UniAstrum') began its money transfer operations in 2001 under\nthe Unistream brand. According to RosBusinessConsulting, UniAstrum is one of\nRussia's fastest growing banks and is now ranked as one of Russia's top 10 banks\nin terms of number of branches. In July 2006, UniAstrum set up a new company\nnamed Unistream which was granted a separate banking license in August 2006\nallowing it to offer money transfer services in Russia. UniAstrum is in the\nprocess of transferring its money transfer assets including cash desks and its\nagency agreements to Unistream comprising 75 cash desks in Russia with 145\nservice points located within UniAstrum's branch network. Through its agency\nagreements Unistream also operates through over 200 agents with approximately\n25,000 points of sale in over 80 different countries processing over 1,500,000\ntransactions in the first 10 months of 2006. Unistream has approximately 200\nemployees which are currently being transferred from UniAstrum.\n\nAssuming that UniAstrum had fully demerged Unistream as a separate company at\nthe beginning of the year ended 31 December 2005, on a pro forma basis the\nUnistream business wo...