Russian Funds Investment Group goes online

Internet trading in Russia attracts serious investors. As it became known to the Vedomosti newspaper , the Russian Funds investment group acquired 50% of the IT Invest Internet broker. Experts believe that this is not the last deal on the rapidly growing Russian market of Internet trading.

Russian Funds bought IT Invest for the sake of successful e-commerce technologies, said Viktor Chetverikov, General Director of the National Rating Agency, in an interview with Vedomosti: "There is nothing more there, the company has been looking for an investor for a long time." He estimates the amount of the transaction at $ 3 million.

The IT Invest investment company operates under the it-trade trademark. At the end of March, it ranked 33rd in terms of turnover in shares on the MICEX SE (11.7 billion rubles) and 11th in the RTS derivatives market. According to the company, at the end of 2006, there were 2000 registered individual customers. As of July 1, 2006, the capital amounted to 27 million rubles.

Report of the Board of Directors of ICT Invest Investments CJSC on strategic partnership with the Russian Funds Investment Group and Prospect Investment Company
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Dear customers, colleagues, friends!

This year marks 10 years of our active work on the development of affordable exchange trading technologies, understandable and popular products and services. During this time, we have concentrated within the framework of one company all the most significant achievements of the global practice of providing brokerage services to retail clients, created and implemented technology platforms that had not existed in Russia before. Among them - the system of direct access to the trading platforms it-trade, a range of information-analytical terminals SmartTrade, auxiliary products for trading, internal accounting and security of exchange transactions.
By the end of 2006, the number of open accounts serviced at ITinvest exceeded 2,000, and the annual volume of stock turnover came close to 170 billion rubles. The company's clients got access to the NYSE and NASDAQ, the number of regional representatives over the past year has doubled.

At the same time, the further development of the Company was restrained by insufficient capitalization, which did not allow us to provide that service to our customers, which they deserve and rely on. Under these conditions, we made a decision on attracting external financing. The most favorable conditions were proposed by the IG Russian Funds, which is objectively interested in cooperating with ITinvest and is ready to finance its further activities through the acquisition of an additional 50% stake.

We are absolutely confident that the entry of ICT Investments CJSC into the Russian Funds Investment Group - Prospect Investment Company – Pallada Asset Management UC will have a positive effect on customer service conditions and on the Company's activity as a whole, will give significant impulse to our development. The Company's clients will receive all the advantages of institutional investors and large private clients of Prospect IC. At the same time, we will keep low commissions and will be ready to offer new services and tools in the near future.

We count on your support and solidarity.