MoneyGram’s Shares Put On Sale By One Of Its Biggest Shareholders, Ripple

Approximately 1/3^rd of MoneyGram’s stocks had been bought by a blockchain-based firm called Ripple. The firm started to inject its investment in MoneyGram in the year 2019.

Securities & Exchange Commission of the US (SEC) had indicated that MoneyGram’s 6.22 Million shares had been in the ownership of Ripple. It also told that there is another arrangement under which Ripple is warranted to buy further MoneyGram’s shares upto 5.95 Million.

A news report confirmed that Ripple is now intending to dispose of at least 4 million shares of MoneyGram. This meant that at 33.3% Ripple owned shares of MoneyGram had to be put on sale. Even if these 33.3% shares had been sold by Ripple, it would still be holding more than 3.22 million shares of MoneyGram.

Back in the year 2019, Ripple had invested in MoneyGram’s shares to the tune of US$ 4.10 Million. However, since its initial investment, the value of MoneyGram’s shares had increased manifold. For instance, in the year 2020, the value of these shares had increased upto 260%. This comes to a price of US 7.5 Million as of today.

After the news emerged, CoinDesk contacted Ripple for obtaining more details about its decision on selling the shares.CoinDesk was informed that Ripple had always backed and supported MoneyGram in its digital transformation. However, the decision of selling off MoneyGram’s shares was purely a commercial decision to fetch gains on investment. It also clarified that this does not in any way affect the mutual understanding between the two.

Earlier Ripple had received a question in an email enquiring about the use of proceeds from the sale of MoneyGram’s shares. However, the spokesperson of Ripple did not reply to the question and instead opted not to pass any comment.

Further news revealed that in the third quarter of 2020, MoneyGram had received around 9 Million dollars from Ripple. It was told that the amount so received was paid by Ripple as a fee for market development. This was later on duly reflected in the MoneyGram’s 3^rd quarterly audit report.

A spokesperson of Ripple told that the company wants to keep in hand its stake in MoneyGram. He added that MoneyGram’s remittance services in over two hundred countries make it a global remittance leader.