MOSCOW: Mail.ru Group Limited announced that its Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) have started trading on the Moscow Exchange, having been included in the Level 1 List.

Commenting on the event Boris Dobrodeev, CEO (Russia) of Mail.ru Group, said: “Today’s listing on the local exchange marks a major milestone in our history as a public company, enabling millions of Russians to become our shareholders. Russia’s local retail investor base has been rising rapidly, and they will now have access to our GDRs through the Moscow Exchange. In the meantime, we will continue to create technologies that will increase shareholder value, and believe that the listing will enhance the overall liquidity of our company.”

Local listing is one of the key requirements for future indexation, bound to increase Mail.ru Group’s visibility among funds looking at the Russian equity market.

“We are pleased that more and more companies with Russian roots are opting for a secondary listing on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX). There are more than 5.3 million private investors with access to MOEX markets, and now they can buy Mail.ru Group shares using Russian infrastructure, with clear and convenient rules, and paying in Russian roubles. I hope that Mail.ru Group’s depositary receipts will be actively traded on our Exchange and become popular among individual investors, who are familiar with Mail.ru Group’s business given that the company’s services cover practically all Internet segments and are part of daily life for many Russians,” said MOEX CEO, Yuri Denisov.

Mail.ru Group is the largest internet business in Russia in terms of total daily audience. Mail.ru Group is developing the leading domestic internet communications and entertainment platform. The company owns Russia’s two largest Russian language social networks, VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki (OK), leading email service, one of Russia’s largest internet portals (Mail.ru), and four instant messaging services.

The company also holds the international gaming brand MY.GAMES, with a portfolio of hundreds of popular games for a range of platforms and over 605 million users worldwide. In 2019, Mail.ru Group Tech Lab was launched with a primary focus on technology and innovation development.

Mail.ru Group is a shareholder of AliExpress Russia JV along with Alibaba Group, MegaFon and Russian Direct Investment Fund. The company partners with Sberbank to jointly develop O2O service platform targeting food delivery and taxi markets.

MOEX operates Russia’s main trading platform for currencies, money market instruments, equities, bonds, derivative instruments and commodities. The Group includes the central securities depository (National Settlement Depository) and a clearing center (National Clearing Centre), performing the functions of central counterparty on the markets, which allows MOEX to offer its clients a full range of trading and post-trading services.