X5 Retail Group N.V. declared signing the agreement on purchasing 100% of the business and assets of the supermarket network Paterson from the holding company CorpInvest Inc. The new owner will receive a network of 82 stores in Moscow, the Moscow region, St.Petersburg, Kazan, as well as in some other cities of the European part of Russia and in the Ural region.
It also became known that the next meeting of X5 Retail Group supervisory board will consider the question of prolonging the 4-year labour contract of the Chief Executive Lev Khasis. His contract expires on May 1st, 2010. Lev Khasis, the unchallenged manager of Alfa-Group retail business, hasn’t yet decided if he will stay at the company or not.
As a result the X5 supervisory board recommended the shareholders’ meeting to extend Lev Khasis’s term of office for another 4 years.
X5 Retail Group simultaneously opened 6 Pyatyorochka discount stores in St.Petersburg. The network took 5 trading areas earlier occupied by the competitive stores Nakhodka.
After the second stock floatation in November Magnit Public Corporation revealed the information on changing the capital shares of the members of the company board of directors, including its founder Sergey Galitskiy. He kept his promise to limit his share up to less than a control one, and the managers’ share decreased at 1%.
JPMorgan Chase Bank, one of the nominal shareholders of Magnit Public Corporation, increased its share at the company’s authorized capital to 25.2% from 16.72% of equities.
According to the January-October 2009 results, the total receipts of Diksi Group came up to 44 055 million rubles, which is 14% more than the same index in 2008 (38 769 million rubles).
Metro Cash & Carry, the German small-batch network, started considering the possibility to open mini-stores in Moscow at the beginning of next year. The retailer already discussed this question with the Moscow authorities. Owing to the smaller size of the new-format stores Metro Cash & Carry will be able to trade in the city center with compact planning.
At last Metro Cash & Carry found a director for the Ukrainian department. Jako Bullen, known in the Ukraine as Head of the Russian X5 Retail Group, took the place of Yan Dunning, who left the company at the beginning of autumn.
It also became known that Sergey Yutschenko, the former General Director of the mobile store network Euroset and hypermarket network Lenta, might become a leader of Fashion Distribution Lab (F.D.Lab) selling such clothes brands as Marc O`Polo, Warehouse, Coast, etc.
Nikolay Vlasenko, the shareholder of GK Victoria managing the trading networks Victoria, Kvartal, Dyoshevo and Cash, left the company’s board of directors. Last week Nikolay Vlasenko didn’t comment on this information.
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The visa term of Evgeniy Chichvarkin, the ex-co-owner of Euroset, has expired. The British authorities preparing to consider the request from the Russian Prosecutor’s Office to extract the businessman are keeping his foreign passport.
The Russian Prosecutor’s General Office finished supplying the documents to the London Westminster Court, which is to consider the question of extracting Evgeniy Chichvarkin to Russia on December 1st, 2009. The case papers include the reasons of the businessman’s extraction, as well as the reward for the protective declaration of the businessman and his lawyers stating that Mr Chichvarkin is being chased due to some political reasons and that different infringements were made during the case investigation.
The mobile retailer Tele2 and Svyaznoi store network, which dissolved their dealer agreement in July 2009, have now restored their relations. The contract terms didn’t change — the retailer works with MTS and Vympelkom at the same conditions.
Svyazsnoy closed 10% of its stores in the Volga region. Now the number of the network selling points decreased up to 270. The company representatives accounted for these stores’ unprofitability by the lessors’ price policy. According to the retailer’s information, for the first time since the crisis broke out the lessors started to increase the rent.
On Tuesday the Moscow Arbitrage Court postponed considering the action of the retailer Betalink Close Public Corporation against the mobile operator Mobilnye Telesistemy Public Corporation a 643.5 million rubles till December, 11th.
MTS and Euroset signed an agreement settling all the mutual disputes and concluding an amicable agreement at the courts. The parties agreed to offset all the counter obligations. As a result Euroset agreed to pay off the rest of its debt a 501 million rubles to MTS by the equal monthly tranches within 2 years starting from December 2009.
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SIA International, the major Russian pharmaceutical distributor, declared the possibility to purchase a share at the apothecary network 36.6 while placing 85.5 million additional emission shares of the network (the current share capital is 9.5 million shares).
The apothecary network 36.6 found a way to settle its debts to the suppliers: this was done by the medicine producer Veropharm owned by 36.6. The retailer will pay this debt to its sister company in 3 years. Veropharm invested 132.9 million rubles to the business of Apteka 36.6 Close Public Corporation and 61.4 million rubles to the business of LeMM Ltd.
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Last week Mikhail Triphonov, who was the second partner of Georgy Lyamin, the main owner of Top-Kniga, for 12 years, affirmed that he didn’t receive any money from Mr Lyamin for his share in the major book retailer. Mr Triphonof addressed the court and demanded back 10% of the company. On November, 11th the Novosibirsk Arbitrage Court registered 2 Mikhail Triphonov’s actions against Georgy Lyamin demanding to nullify the sale contract dated 2007 of selling 10% Top-Kniga shares by Mr Triphonov to Mr Lyamin.
The jewelry stores Altyn, whose owners and top-managers are accused of smuggling the goldenwork, removed the signboards from the stores without resuming their work.
The retail perfume and cosmetics store L’Etoile pledged its brand to Alfa-Bank. The pledge contract was signed for 18 months, and the company is to return 50 million euro to the bank till April 2011. The experts estimated the L’Etoile brand at $5-7 million.
The “Ulybka Radugi” network (cosmetics, perfume and household chemicals stores) entered the Moscow market. Within the last month one of the major operators in the North-Western region working in the drogerie format already opened 3 objects in the Moscow region.
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.
