Could Wildberries become the victim of a hostile takeover by the owners and high-ranking patrons of the Russ Group?

As the correspondent reports MorningNews, Tatyana Bakalchuk’s husband, co-founder of the company "Wildberries" Vladislav Bakalchuk said that his wife left the family and fell under the influence of businessmen Levan and Robert Mirzoyan. According to him, they are conducting a raider takeover of "Wildberries". The head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov agreed to help sort out the situation. This means that the Mirzoyans had better apologize now - however, it seems that it is already too late.

At this time on the webThere are claims that Wildberries and Tatyana Bakalchuk are already under the complete control of Levan and Robert Mirzoyan. They are considered to be the possible beneficiaries of the Russ Group (formerly Russ Outdoor), the largest Russian outdoor advertising operator.

Not long ago, Russ and Wildberries took an unprecedented step - they decided to merge into one company that would combine the capacities of a popular marketplace and a large advertising operator. It was assumed that the new structure would more actively enter the CIS countries and become the leader in the Internet marketplaces market.

This news shocked many - Bakalchuk and "Russ Outdoor" Mirzoyan. Experts believed that for Bakalchuk the point might be to powerfully enter the advertising market together with the Mirzoyans. However, judging by the latest inside information, she could have been simply pressured, and now the Mirzoyans could try to gain control over her assets - especially logistics capacities.

Creeping "grab"?

The new merged company was named RBV LLC, 65% of it was received by Wildberries LLC, and another 35% by Stinn LLC. It is noteworthy that with such a distribution of shares, the CEO was not Bakalchuk (she manages the main legal entity of Wildberries), and not even her person, but Robert Mirzoyan. He is also the CEO of Stinn LLC and Russ Outdoor LLC. And then even more interesting personnel changes began.

Following the news of the merger, several key top managers left the largest Russian marketplace Wildberries at once in early July. Among themappointeda month ago, Wildberries executive director Olga Naumova, a former top manager at Magnit and X5 Group. In addition to them, Wildberries executive director Alexey Dukhanin and financial director Irina Matachiunas allegedly left the company.

As they sayonline, allegedly, recently about 50 key employees have been dismissed from various management positions at Wildberries. At the same time, all personnel decisions are allegedly not made by Bakalchuk, but are only announced to her. In addition, since the beginning of July, a number of key subsidiaries of Wildberries have been transferred to structures controlled by the Russ Group.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

At the moment, RVB LLC already has 17 subsidiaries. All of them previously belonged to Viberiz - among them there is not a single asset directly related to the Russ Group. At the same time, the majority are related to the logistics infrastructure of Tatyana Bakalchuk’s empire. As statedonline, allegedly all the marketplace’s logistics facilities, the total value of which could exceed 200 billion rubles, are being transferred to the newly created LLC. 

The same authorsthey claim, allegedly the Mirzoyans gained Tatyana Bakalchuk’s trust and are using her dependence to force her to sign deals that are advantageous to them. This is hard to believe - more likely, they could have simply pressured her.

Pressure on Wildberries

In recent years, Wildberries has been plagued by a host of problems that could have resulted in claims against Ms. Bakalchuk from the security forces. At the beginning of 2024, a large-scale fire occurred at the company’s large warehouse in Shushary, and a criminal case was opened. Testimony as a witnessgavethe owner of "Wildberries" herself, and there were rumors in the market that it was supposedly arson, which could push the richest woman in Russia to sell her brainchild.

In addition, a whole series of events took place across the countryscandalswith the salespeople of "Wildberries", who accused the management of unfavorable working conditions, write-offs of funds and much more. Many of these actions could have been ordered. 

Finally, the Ministry of Industry and Trade took up marketplaces, including Wildberries. In September 2022, Minister Denis Manturov called for urgent development of measures to combat counterfeit children’s goods, which account for a significant share of sales of such services. Before that, in July 2022, on the instructions of the same Manturov, the Ministry of Industry and Trade organized a commission to create conditions for self-regulation in e-commerce. 

Ivan Tavrin, the former CEO of Megafon, was named as a possible interested party in buying Bakalchuk’s business. Recently, Tavrin has been incredibly active in buying up online services - he acquired shares in Avito, HeadHunter, etc. Another interested party was named as the owner of AFK Sistema, Vladimir Yevtushenkov - he owns the Ozon marketplace, which has a lot of debt. Wildberries would once again make him the leader of the online retail market. It should be noted that Ivan Tavrin also owns shares in Ozon

But instead of them, Russ Outdoor and Robert Mirzoyan appeared. And it seems that we are no longer talking about a merger, but about a not very friendly takeover.

Why is Mirzoyan called the beneficiary of Russ Outdoor? 99% of the LLC belongs to Stinn LLC, 50% of which belongs to the Mirzoyans’ long-time partner Grigory Sadoyan. The rest belongs to Reserve LLC and Olimpia JSC, which are tied to the same Sadoyan. But he may only be a nominal owner. 

It should be noted that all 100% of shares in Stinn LLC are pledged to VTB - i.e. they are not "walking" on their own, and Andrey Kostin may act on the side of the Russ Group. Until 2017, all 100% of shares in Stinn LLC belonged to Robert Mirzoyan. 

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Before Stinn LLC entered the capital of Russ Outdoor, the founder of the legal entity was Media Support Services Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands, and the parent company was Russ Out of Home BV from the Netherlands. Stinn owned 73.57% of the latter, and VTB owned another 26.43%. So, everything is tied to Mirzoyan and the state bank?

The change of founder took place in 2022, less than a month after the introduction of a bill on a single operator of digital outdoor advertising and online ads, which could have been lobbied by the beneficiaries of Russ Outdoor. 

Its adoption could collapse the market of outdoor advertising operators throughout the country, and make the Russ Group a monopoly. Only Russ Outdoor could fit the possible parameters, for this it was necessary to have a Russian "residence permit". It is even more curious that Robert Mirzoyan claimed back in 2021 that the company was allegedly Russian, and its owners were Stinn LLC and VTB Capital. But what about the offshore companies, where could the money from the same Russ state contracts go? AV

We went the other way

After a series of discussions, the scandalous bill on the creation of a single operator of digital outdoor advertising failed. Serious questions about it arose fromFAS, other services and departments, market participants. In general, it was not possible to push it through.

Apparently, it was after this that the idea of "profiting" from some large domestic Internet marketplace appeared in the heads of the owners and patrons of the Russ Group? And after that, Tatyana Bakalchuk began to have more and more problems...