Last week Alexander Zanadvorov, the owner of 74.8% of the Seventh Continent, agreed to share 15% of the company with the creditors (Natixis Bank, Alfa-Bank and Spinnaker hedge-funds) in exchange for restructuring $560 million of personal debt.
X5 Retail Group informed about its plans to open about 140 Pyatyorochka stores in 2009. At the same time the network already opened 104 stores of this format within this January — September. A decision of X5 purchasing the retail network Paterson will also be taken till the end of the year.
On November 18th, 2009 the first O’key hypermarket was ceremonially opened in Moscow. It took more than 11 300 square meters of the trading area in the building at Prospect Mira str. The assortment accounted more than 45 000 units.
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The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office stated several infringements of medicine pricing in 36.6 apothecary stores. The supervisors decided that the apothecaries overpriced the retail mark up for Flixotide (a medicine for curing bronchial asthma) at 2.5 times. The representatives of 36.6 adopted overpricing at 78 rubles per unit and accounted this fact for a technical failure.
Last week the apothecary network 36.6 converted 636 million rubles of the debt to its suppliers into credits. 36.6 managed to postpone payments to the suppliers, who in their turn will receive both the main debt and the interest for using it.
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From the next year selling vodka at price cheaper than 89 rubles per half a liter will be considered illegal: the Federal Service for the Regulation of the Alcohol Market offered to set such a minimum retail price.
It also became known that Rosalcohol might receive the authority to deprive retailers, producers and distributors of their alcohol selling licenses without receiving the court permission. The Committee for the Regulation of the Alcohol Market headed by the first Vice-Premier Victor Zubkov approved this plan. This document should further be approved by the government.
In order to keep within the limits stated by the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (to adopt the Law On Trade till the end of this year), the second reading might be combined with the third one, and then the document might be urgently submitted to the Council of Federation for consideration.
The authorities were upset with the price increase for the antiviral medicine, as well as its deficit at the apothecaries. The President thought that making profit out of epidemic was inadmissible; the Prime Minister assured that he wouldn’t allow the price increase; the Minister of Public Health personally monitored the apothecary stores; the Moscow mayor threatened the apothecaries having no gauze bandages and anti-flu medicine with recalling their licenses.
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Evgeniy Chichvarkin, the ex-co-owner of the Euroset company, whose extradition is strived by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office, addressed the Westminster Magistrate Court, where his case is to be considered, with the so called protective application. In his application the businessman noted that his criminal prosecution was politically motivated and might be connected with his attempts to sell the company. At the same time the last person involved in the criminal case of kidnapping and extortion was arrested – this was Vladimir Ilyin, the ex- security service employee wanted by the police.
It also became known that within the near future Mezhregionalniy Tranzittelekom (MTT) Public Company might have another general director. Eldar Razroev, the ex-president of Euroset and ex-general director of Sistemy Mass-Media, might become the head of MTT instead of Victor Bertyakov.
Three mobile store networks, now under the bankruptcy procedure, own about $10 million to the mobile phone producers. Dixis became the first victim of the crisis – it closed all its stores including the St.Petersburg ones at the end of 2008. Betalink did the same thing in January. In autumn the company, which had 60 selling points in St.Petersburg, addressed the Moscow Arbitrage Court with an action of its own bankruptcy. 76 Tsifrograd stores were closed in St.Petersburg and the Leningrad region in April. All the bankruptcy actions are now under consideration.
Piterphone, one of the last independent mobile selling networks in St.Petersburg, changed its juridical person. This change coincided with the retailer’s trial with the Credit-Moscow Bank on recovering its debt on the credit agreement.
MTS and Euroset, who dissolved all agreements from April, are now close to signing an amicable agreement. In case it’s signed the companies will recall all mutual claims, and Euroset might pay compensation a $20 million to MTS.
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Last week Alexander Dobrovinskiy, lawyer of the company owner Vladimir Nekrasov, informed that the Moscow Arbitrage Court introduced a supervision procedure in Arbat Prestige Public Corporation, the head company of the perfume and cosmetics network of the same name. The company assets now under the bankruptcy procedure were priced at 700.5 million rubles, and the receivables – at 695 million rubles. The debt of Arbat Prestige to the suppliers, contractors and banks is estimated a 2628 billion rubles.
Nomos-Bank, one of the main creditors of the perfume holding Arbat Prestige (now under the bankruptcy procedure), let the company Autoaudit No.1 Ltd. related to the former holding management company have the chose in action at 1033 billion rubles.
The Investigation Committee of UFSB of the Tyumen region finished the investigation of the criminal case in relation to the expeditor of the jewelry network Altyn. At the beginning of the year he was arrested at the border trying to smuggle 50 kg of goldware in sleigh. Finally the Altyn expeditor was accused of breaking Article 188 of the Russian Federation Criminal Code (smuggling). The man gave a written undertaking not to leave the country and started to get acquainted with the case papers.
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Dikaya Orkhideya almost restructured the whole bonded debt at 1 billion rubles. The company continues the negotiations with only one shareholder having the shares approximately at 30 million rubles. The retailer managed to settle this question with the rest shareholders.
Within this year’s nine months the receipts of the book company Top-Kniga came up to 4.84 billion rubles, which is 30.4% less then during the last year’s three quarters. The gross profit decreased at 31.6% to 2.33 billion rubles, and the net loss came up to 254.69 million rubles compared to 112.91 million rubles of the last year’s net loss.
Group of companies Talex, one of the major Russian fish and seafoods distributors with the Dutch capital, returned to developing the retail business. The group declared their plans to open more than 100 specialized selling points in Moscow and St.Petersburg. Talex’s last experience in the retail business didn’t allow to bring the company to self-repayment. This time the company decided to diversify the risks by working in three formats.
The digest was prepared by Retailer.RU and was translated by iTrex company. Itrex is a translation bureau. It offers written and oral translation, notary certification and a lot more. Itrex does work with every language: European, Eastern languages and others. Itrex does work with every topic: technical, legal, financial, business, etc.
