And the “Ship” is sailing – Newspaper Kommersant No. 59 (7504) dated 04/06/2023

Structures associated with billionaire Alexander Mamut will receive the entire business of the Korablik children’s goods chain, which is now experiencing financial difficulties. So far, the first stage of the deal has been closed, under which the businessman’s structure became the owner of a minority stake. Experts believe that the acquisition of Korablik will provide synergy with a similar network of Vinnie, also associated with the structures of the entrepreneur, but they warn that it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete with marketplaces where sales of children’s goods are growing noticeably.

Kerbin LLC, associated with the A&NN Investments fund, which manages the assets of Alexander Mamut, received 5% in Korablik-R LLC, the operating company of the Korablik children’s goods chain. The remaining share is retained by the joint-stock company of the same name. The corresponding changes were made to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities on April 4. But this is the first stage of the deal, as a result of which the entire business will be transferred to the structure of Mr. Mamut, a Kommersant source in the market said.

According to SPARK-Interfax, Kerbin LLC is equally owned by A&NN Investments executive director Nadezhda Ermakova and Viktor Samoilov. The company also owns legal entities associated with the Goood’s House, Cookhouse chains of household goods stores, as well as the Pioneer cinema in Moscow. These networks are operated by Ideas4Retail, where 90% is owned by Alexander Mamut’s A&NN Investments and Lynwood Group.

Ideas4Retail, Nadezhda Ermakova, Viktor Samoilov and Korablik did not provide any comments.

The Korablik network, created in 2000 by Alexei Zuev, according to his own data, includes more than 150 stores in a hundred cities of the Russian Federation. But recently, the company has experienced financial difficulties: for example, at the end of 2021, its revenue decreased by 43%, to 3.7 billion rubles, a net loss amounted to 252.7 million rubles.

Because of these problems, according to the president of the Association of Children’s Goods Industry Enterprises Antonina Tsitsulina, in recent years the chain has had to reduce the number of operating stores.

So, in 2019, according to the presentation of Detsky Mir, Korablik ranked fifth among the key players in the children’s goods market with a 2% share, but in 2021, according to Infoline estimates, it dropped to ninth place with a share of less than 1 %.

However, Hamleys toy stores, which are being developed in the Russian Federation under the Ideas4Retail franchise, also could not cope with financial difficulties. As a result, some of these stores were renamed “Vinnie” (see “Kommersant” dated January 16). Ideas4retail merged its business with the group of the same name, which sells children’s goods of famous European brands, in 2018. The owner of the DTC “Vinnie” Artem Kagramanov did not respond to a request from “Kommersant”.

In March of this year, it became known that 5% of Korablik-R LLC was transferred to the owner of the toy distributor MTK Alisa, Oleg Sokhatsky (see “Kommersant” dated March 20). At the same time, Kommersant’s experts suggested that the amount of the transaction could be symbolic due to the high debt load of the network, which at the end of 2021 amounted to 3.4 billion rubles.

The structures of Alexander Mamut, developing the Hamleys network, were interested in acquiring Korablik back in February 2022, then reported Forbes citing their sources. The deal with Korablik, according to Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of Infoline-Analytics, will allow obtaining synergy with Vinny and strengthening the position of Mr. Mamut’s structures in the children’s goods market.

However, the expert warns, specialized retail as a whole continues to experience difficulties, and Korablik and Vinny, despite the potential integration of procurement, logistics and management, do not yet have a particular competitive advantage over the segment leader, the Detsky Mir chain.

In addition, Mr. Burmistrov adds, marketplaces represent serious competition in the sale of children’s goods. According to Antonina Tsitsulina, today online platforms account for almost 60% of sales in this segment.

Alina Savitskaya