Qiwi minority shareholders in no hurry to sell shares within Solonin offer, offer timeframe extended

MOSCOW. Aug 9 (Interfax) - Dalliance Services Company, controlled by principal owner of Qiwi Group Sergey Solonin, has extended the validity of the tender offer for the repurchase of the group's shares.

As stated in Qiwi materials, the validity of the proposal for the repurchase of its shares from minority shareholders has been extended until 00:00 New York time on August 26, 2022. Before that it expired at midnight on August 15, 2022.

As of 18:00 New York time on August 5, 2022, no Qiwi shares were tendered as part of the offer, the group said in materials.

Dalliance Services Company on July 19 revised the parameters of repurchase of the group's shares. The company plans to buy up to 10 million class B shares or American depositary receipts (ADR) (19.1% of class B shares, or 15.9% of share capital) at a price of $2.50 per share. Previously, Solonin's company offered to buy out Qiwi shareholders at a price of $2.20 to $2.70 per share.

It was announced earlier that in case of full subscription at the price of $2.50 per share, Dalliance Services Company may use the option to increase the number of repurchased shares by no more than 2% of the total number of shares, which means it may buy up to 11,045,989 shares (21,1% of B class shares or 17,6% of capital).

Qiwi's share capital consists of 10,413,522,000 class A shares and 52,299,453,000 class B shares with a par value of €0.0005. One class A share represents 10 votes and one class B share represents one vote.

Qiwi's ADRs are traded on Nasdaq, but trading on them was suspended on February 28, 2022. The last registered price of the ADR on this exchange was $5.67 per one receipt. The ADR price of the company at the close of trading on the Moscow Stock Exchange on July 18 was 284.5 rubles per one receipt (or $5.03 at the Central Bank exchange rate of that day). The difference between these prices and the price of redemption of shares within the framework of Solonin's offer reflects the so-called discount for lack of liquidity due to difficulties in trading these securities, the materials said.

Solonin is buying out Qiwi shares for investment purposes.

Dalliance Services Company's offer to buy out Qiwi's shares is not being implemented as part of a buyback program. The tender offer does not come from Qiwi, and the company and its board of directors have not expressed their position on the tender offer, a representative of the group said earlier.

Qiwi operates one of Russia's largest payment services. The group has 14.9 million virtual wallets and just over 96,000 terminals and payment points. The main shareholder of Qiwi is Sergey Solonin (he owns 66.6% of votes). Otkritie Bank owns 13.7% of Qiwi votes.