TCS Group Holding, a major provider of online retail financial services in Russia known as Tinkoff, has acquired a stake in leading ticket sales company Kassir.ru. Neither the size of the stake nor the terms of the transactions were disclosed.
Kassir.ru’s existing personnel or existing operations will not be affected by the transaction, Tinkoff stated.
Kassir.ru claims to have attracted 70 million visitors last year, selling more than 4.3 million tickets. The company, which has 22 outlets across the country, generated 7.1 billion rubles (roughly $125 million) in revenues.
Not only will event tickets be made accessible easily via the Tinkoff online bank and mobile app. The group also wants to “offer new solutions through synergies with other Tinkoff services.”
Tinkoff’s “ecosystem” includes – in addition to retail banking — SME services (‘Tinkoff Business’), an online trading platform (‘Tinkoff Investments’) as well as insurance, mortgage, mobile and travel service offers.
“We seek to provide our customers with a range of daily services beyond financial and insurance products,” said Oliver Hughes, CEO of Tinkoff Bank. “The integration of Russia’s top ticket sales company into the Tinkoff.ru platform will fulfil another daily customer need, this time in entertainment. This, in turn, strengthens our position in lifestyle services beyond banking. By leveraging synergies with Tinkoff Bank and other Group companies, we will be able to attract new users to our ecosystem. We will also share best practice in business process optimization and IT to help Kassir.ru further boost its business.”
In 2016, Kassir.ru acquired Belarusian Kvitki.by and Lithuanian Bilietai.lt. The latter transaction amounted to €5.5 million.
Among Kassir.ru’s competitors in Russia are Ticketland.ru and Ponominalu.ru, two major event ticket operators which were acquired by mobile operator MTS earlier this year.
