MoneyGram logo on their main exchange office in Belgrade, Serbia on 11 July 2018. Shutterstock
The firm behind the XRP digital asset, Ripple, is profiting on its 2019 investment into MoneyGram, by selling a part of its shares for a gain on its initial investment.
According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exhcnage Commission (SEC) from Friday, Ripple Labs was able to sell around 2.2 million shares of its MoneyGram (MGI) stock between 27 November and 4 December. While the sale netted the company $15.3 million, it represents only half of what the firm is planning to sell, according to another filing with the SEC.
Last week, Ripple revealed that it is planning to sell up to 4 million shares of its MoneyGram stock by 31 March, 2021, which represents about one third of its stake in the remittance firm. Once the entire sell has been completed, Ripple will still own 2.3 million shares of MoneyGram and a warrant that gives it the right to buy additional 5.9 million shares at a fixed price, bringing the total to 8.2 million shares remaining.
Ripple first announced its investment into MoneyGram back in June, 2019, when the firm agreed to buy $30 million MoneyGram shares at a fixed price of $4.10 per stock; at the time that was more than three times the normal price. Even though the purchase was made at a premium, the deal seems to be paying off, as the value of MoneyGram’s stock has rocketed in the past few months. 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 investment and is in no way a reflection of the current state of our partnership.”
Back in October the price of the shares was around $2.94, but quickly soared to $8.53 by 23 November. Since the initial filing, the price of MoneyGram’s stock has taken a plummet, and is now resting around the $6.5 mark.