Rakuten in the company in August 2007 and, in 2010, it announced a joint venture with Baidu in China (Lekutian). In June 2011, Rakuten acquired Brazilian e-commerce firm Ikeda — since renamed Rakuten Brazil. In July, it bought German e-commerce start-up Tradoria and rebranded it Rakuten Deutschland, and in September UK online retailer and e-commerce marketplace Play.com for £25 million (almost $41 million), which was converted into the points-based loyalty program Rakuten.co.uk. In September 2011, Rakuten took a minority equity stake in Russian online retailer Ozon.ru, dubbed "Russia's Amazon", which had reported 2010 sales worth US$137 million. A four-company-strong consortium, led
Comic book collecting a few specialist shops had opened their doors by the 1960s, but were still a small market. In the UK, the only distribution channels available were ordinary news stands and mail order publications like "Exchange and Mart" or through zines run by the early panelologists themselves. Denver, Colorado-based retailer Chuck Rozanski played a large role in the growth of the comics speculation market in 1977 when he acquired the high-value "Mile High Collection" — 16,000 comic books dating from 1937 to 1955 — and slowly began releasing select books into the marketplace. During the late 1970s–early 1980s major comic publishers