Interfax completes deal to buy 90% of Finmarket

The Interfax Group announced on Monday that it has completed the transaction to acquire 90% of the Finmarket Information Agency, one of the leading Russian providers of financial information.

The parties have completed the legal aspects of the transaction and have also met their commitments on transferring the ownership rights for the 90% stake in the Finmarket Information Agency over to Interfax.

Thus, Finmarket has become part of the Interfax Group as a subsidiary.

The Finmarket Information Agency is a well-known brand on the Russian financial market. The agency, established in 1994, provides the entire spectrum of information aimed at professional members of the securities market and for those who are interested in events in the financial world.

In joining Interfax, Finmarket will keep its specialization for Internet projects and its public informational portal http://www.finmarket.ru/ will become the main representation of Interfax‘s Financial and Economic Service on the Internet.

Lichnye Dengi (Private Money), another popular project of the Finmarket agency, will serve as a platform for the Interfax Group’s information services intended for consumers of financial services. It will also involve analytical studies, rankings, ratings, and estimates provided by the Interfax Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA) and the Experian Interfax Credit Bureau, which also works with private borrowers.

The "Private Money" project, which provides information on how to keep and increase personal savings, how to manage real estate, how to choose insurance firms, how to get credit etc., will be developed by the Interfax company‘s funding from earnings in all seven Russian federal districts.

Finmarket has the set RusBonds task of becoming the main resource on the bonds market in Runet (the Russian part of the internet), thanks in part to the unique SPARK database, developed by Interfax, and also its system disclosure of issuer information.

Interfax is also interested in another Finmarket project - Finmarket RealTime, which is one of the leaders in the market terminal sector. Interfax, which also has a leading position in this segment with itsEfir terminal, hopes that by uniting the capacities of the two agencies it will achieve a leading position in the provision of exchange information for professional participants on the Russian market.

***The Interfax Information Services Group creates information products and means of communications that help take decisions both in politics and business. The Interfax Group, founded in 1989, incorporates a network of national, regional and industrial news agencies active in Russia, other CIS member-nations, China and Central Europe. The Interfax Group includes companies and divisions involved in providing news, analytical services, market data, fundamental information and program solutions.

The Interfax Group’s finance and business service incorporates ten companies, including the largest news agencies on their markets such as the Business and Financial Newswire and the Energy Newswire. The Interfax Center for Economic Analysis is known as one of the largest independent analytical centers. The SPARK project is Russia’s largest corporate database.

*** The Finmarket Information Agency was established in 1994 and specializes in providing financial and business information intended for securities market players, including banks, financial, investment, broker and insurance companies, as well as a broad audience of specialists interested in events taking place on Russia’s financial markets.

Finmarket‘s website is one of the most visited Internet sites dedicated to financial and economic news.

Finmarket started at about the same time as the Russian financial market appeared and is now considered to be one of the most authoritative sources of financial, economic and business information in Russia