Ripple sells off 33.3% of its shares in MoneyGram

• Ripple is set to sell 4 million of its shares in MoneyGram.

• The firm would still own at least 3 million shares of the traditional financial institution.

Popular US based crypto firm, Ripple, is set to sell close to 4 million of its shares in Moneygram. This was made known by a filing made by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

According to the filing, the company owns over 6 million shares of MoneyGram. However, the firm is still allowed to buy over 5 million shares from the financial institution. This would increase its shareholdings to 12.2 million shares. It would also mean that the US based company would hold at least 17% of MoneyGram’s shares.

If the sale of the shares should go ahead, it is expected that the firm would still be able to net a considerable amount of profit. Ripple had bought its initial shares at $4.10 per share. 

The traditional financial institution share has grown by over 200% in the last one year. As of Wednesday, MoneyGram’s share was at $7.42. Invariably, the crypto company is set to make profit when it eventually finalizes the sale of a part of its holdings.

It should be noted that the US based crypto company would still own at least 3 million MoneyGram shares. Not only that, Ripple is still at liberty to purchase the additional shares in the warrant, if this is done, the firm would still own at least 11% of MoneyGram.

Ripple’s $50 million equity in MoneyGram

In November last year, Ripple had completed the purchase of a $50 million equity stake in MoneyGram. 

MoneyGram’s CEO Alex Holmes had hailed Ripple’s investment/partnership with them as a game changer for the traditional financial industry and the digital currency industry. According to him, their partnership would allow MoneyGram to settle currencies in seconds.

A spokesperson of Ripple has however tried to downplay any rumor of bad bloods between the two financial institutions. He reaffirmed that the company was proud of its role in MoneyGram’s digital growth transformation. He also added that the decision to sell part of their shares was a pure financial decision made to maximise profit.