OREANDA-NEWS. January 22, 2007. Finam Investment Company has become the first Russian company to provide Japanese investors with online trading solutions on the Russian market. Aruji Gate Securities Inc. acts as Finam’s partner in Japan. At present, Japanese investors can execute transactions on MICEX Stock Exchange using a special version of Finam Web-Trade online trading system.

The project to roll out online trading in Russian stocks kicked off in Japan on January 17 when the first deal was struck to acquire Gazprom shares using the Japanese version of Finam Web-Trade. Finam’s entry into the Japanese market opens a wealth of new opportunities for Russian issuers whose shares are now available to the widest group of investors from Japan, the world’s second largest economy.

Japanese brokerage company Aruji Gate Securities Inc. is a subsidiary of Aruji Group. The core activity conducted by Aruji Gate is to provide brokerage services to Japanese investors who trade on the Russian securities market.
Finam Web-Trade is an advanced online trading platform that makes it possible to execute transactions without installing special software products from any PC with Internet connection. Apart from stock trading the system allows users to check their trading accounts and place stop-loss orders. The system was translated into Japanese for Japanese investors.

Investing activities on the Japanese stock market is part of Finam’s global strategy geared towards breaking onto international capital markets. In Japan, Finam tested for the first time a new procedure for dealing with foreign partners that focuses on online trading in Russian securities, both blue chips and second-tier names. Longer term, the plan is to offer this service in other countries.

Finam’s strategic target is to form a pool of foreign investors, roll out and maintain mutually beneficial relations with Western investment banks and implement joint corporate finance projects. Finam has established quite an interesting asset portfolio that could be of interest to foreign investors.

“This trading system is one of a kind: no direct access to the Russian securities market has ever been available in Japan. As a matter of fact, we have created a unique trading platform on the Japanese market. We’ve gained a reliable partner in Arugi Group on the Japanese brokerage market and will strive to promote our services. Currently, under discussion is the further implementation of cooperation projects, namely asset and management consulting and also the sale of fund units in the mutual funds run by Finam Management, which will make us No. 1 broker among Japanese investors” – says head of Finam Investment Company’s Foreign Investor Relations Department Grigory Yudashkin.