While Sergey Solonin is expanding in the digital advertising market, is his ex-partner in Qiwi Andrey Romanenko making money on deals with Sberbank?
The provider of payment and financial services in Russia and the CIS, the company Qiwi (“Kiwi”) has agreed to buy one of the largest full-cycle digital marketing companies – RealWeb. The amount of the transaction is not disclosed, but the parameters are known: first, Qiwi will buy 78%, and the remaining 22% within six months.
For the beneficiaries of RealWeb, the deal with Qiwi has become the art of the possible: earlier the company announced plans to sell to some major foreign player, but this was prevented by the start of the NWO and new packages of Western sanctions. It is logical to assume that the sale will take place at a much lower cost than it could be before February 24.
At the same time, Sergey Solonin, the key beneficiary of Kiwi (as well as Kiwi Bank and a host of related structures), should be very happy with the deal, because he will receive the largest player in the digital advertising market and will be able to further diversify the business.</p
How and who else can be happy and not happy about the merger of scandal-ridden Qiwi with a large marketing agency – in the material of The Moscow Post correspondent.
Before the deal, 25% of RealWeb was owned by the iTech Capital offshore investment fund (through the Cyprus offshore ENERONA HOLDING LIMITED) – on its investments in 2013, the group began rapid growth. In addition, the group had five more co-owners – Vasily Lazuka, Maxim Vinogradov, Ivan Khmelevskoy, as well as Emin and Olesya Avetisyan.
Judging by information from open sources, the last two have nothing to do with the famous oligarch Vladimir Avetisyan . At the same time, both Olesya and Emin Avetisyan remain in the company: together with Qiwi, they are going to form plans for the development of the agency.
At the same time, the list of founders of the main legal entity of the advertising company IA Realweb LLC has not changed yet. And it is managed by another organization – LLC Management Company “Realweb”. Its owners are still co-owners of the IA itself – Vasily Lazuka and Maxim Vinogradov. General Director – Olesya Avetisyan. It is logical to assume that the management company will be removed from the management of the IA, and one of the Avetisyans may just become the general director of the latter.
Promoting Sber
RealWeb has a good reputation in the market. For example, they were perhaps the first to purchase advertising in the Telegram messenger when such an opportunity arose. True, as a “outbid”, the structure took an annual subscription to an advertising company, the minimum amount of which is 2 million euros, and then resold advertising as an intermediary.
At the same time, the marketing agency does not shy away from government contracts. She scored them in the amount of more than 38.6 million rubles. But the main counterparty with a contract for 25 million rubles is Yumani LLC.
Yumani is an electronic payment service similar to Qiwi, which is part of the Sberbank ecosystem. By the way, in the end, it was Sberbank, through the RealWeb marketing agency, that became one of the first Russian government agencies to advertise on Telegram. Perhaps this is just an advertisement for the Sber service Yumani.
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 formed by Sergey Solonin, Boris Kim and Andrey Romanenko in 2007 after the merger of two payment systems – e-port and OSMP. In the same year, the “Personal Account” service was launched on QIWI terminals, which was later renamed “QIWI Wallet”.
The latter became almost the main part of Romanenko's business empire and allegedly a favorite tool of dishonest businessmen of all stripes, who thus tried to withdraw their finances from under the sensitive gaze of control and supervisory authorities.
Today, market insiders call Andrei Romanenko the main ideologist and beneficiary of the structure. But formally, he retired a long time ago. Now his partner Sergey Solonin owns 17% of the shares of Kiwi, and also has 60.4% of the total number of votes in the structure.
Kiwi has repeatedly tried to attribute the glory of the whole “cash empire”, allegedly built by Andrey Romanenko. In August 2015, the group's offices underwent large-scale 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 structure. 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.
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?
Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!
Thanks for sharing. I read many of your blog posts, cool, your blog is very good.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks! https://accounts.binance.com/en-NG/register?ref=JHQQKNKN
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks! https://accounts.binance.com/el/register?ref=IQY5TET4
Can you be more specific about the content of your article? After reading it, I still have some doubts. Hope you can help me.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!