Ripple Cashed Out Third Of Its Stake In MoneyGram: Report

Ripple cashed out a third of its stake in MoneyGram in the first such sale of the company stock since the startup invested in the payments giant in 2019 so let’s read more in today’s Ripple news.

According to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Ripple now owns 6.22 million shares of MoneyGram or about 8.6% of the shares outstanding and a warrant as well to buy up to another 5.95 million shares for a total equity position of 12.2 million shares which is 17% of the shares of the company.

Ripple is now selling 4 million shares or about 33% of the entire stake if you take into consideration the shares represented by the warrant. Right after the sale, Ripple will own at least 3.22 million shares which amount to 4.44% of MoneyGram. When including the additional shares in the warrant that give ripple the right to execute a stock buy with a predetermined price, the blockchain payments company will own about 11% of MoneyGram. Ripple cashed out a third of the stake in MoneyGram and under the terms of the initial investment, the company purchased the shares at $4.10 apiece which is a huge premium to their price at that time. The shares of MoneyGram increased by more than 260% this year and closed at $7.42 which means ripple is getting a huge profit on its investment, as a Ripple spokesperson said:

 “Ripple is a proud partner in MoneyGram’s digital growth transformation. This is purely a judicious financial decision to realize some gains on Ripple’s MGI [MoneyGram International] investment and is in no way a reflection of the current state of our partnership.”

The sales are in the process still according to one spokesperson so it turns out that Ripple completed the purchase of a $50 million equity stake in the payments company in November 2019. At the end of the third quarter in 2020, Ripple paid $9.23 million to MoneyGram in market development fees for the firm’s use of the XRP-based settlement network, the on-Demand liquidity network. MoneyGram used the Ripple-based solution to conduct transactions in Australia, Europe, and the Philippines since 2019 for which Ripple paid MoneyGram at least $52 million. The company piloted Ripple’s XRP cryptocurrency in 2018:

 “We will remain a significant shareholder in MoneyGram following the sale – they are clearly a leader in the global payments space in over 200 countries and territories. In just over a year, we’ve made incredible progress and look forward to continuing to work alongside MoneyGram to transform cross-border payments.”