“Cosmic” was not up to entertainment – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/03/2023

One of the prominent and oldest players in the segment of entertainment centers for children and adults, the Kosmik chain, having not recovered from the consequences of the pandemic, faced new difficulties. Due to unpaid debt, the tax authorities demand the bankruptcy of the company. The entire entertainment segment has been hit hard by the coronavirus restrictions. But Kosmik, according to experts, added to this an outdated bowling-oriented concept and a lack of investment in restarting the network.

The fact that Cosmic faced operational business problems, which led to financial difficulties, was told by two sources of Kommersant from the retail real estate and retail market. According to one of Kommersant’s interlocutors, the network has recently closed several facilities. This is confirmed by data from the website of the network and map services, from which it follows that the entertainment centers in Brand City, Mega Belaya Dacha in Moscow and Collage in Kostroma are now closed.

Also, the work of Kosmika objects in the Aura shopping centers in Yaroslavl and Surgut was recently stopped, said Pavel Lyulin, vice president of the Union of Shopping Centers of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. He attributes this to the difficulties experienced by the company in paying for the rent of space. According to Cosmic’s own data, the network consisted of 17 centers. Thus, about 41% of the company’s facilities are not working at the moment.

The chain of entertainment centers “Kosmik”, founded in 1998, was one of the first to appear in this segment. The ultimate beneficiaries are unknown, the founder of CJSC Kosmik, the operating legal entity of the network, is Kartoteka.ru Areola from the Virgin Islands is listed. According to JLL, back in 2019, Cosmik ranked first among entertainment centers in Moscow shopping centers.

At the same time, as Kommersant discovered in the file of arbitration cases, at the end of March of this year, the Federal Tax Service Inspectorate No. 31 for Moscow filed for bankruptcy of Kosmik CJSC. Tatyana Alatskova also notified about her intentions to file a similar application to the company in the interests of the Tyumen LLC Interteyment, follows from the information of SPARK-Interfax. The Federal Tax Service and Kosmik did not respond to Kommersant’s request. It was not possible to contact representatives of “Interteyment”.

Fearing the blocking of accounts, companies, as a rule, try to pay off tax debts as quickly as possible, explains Oleg Khmelevsky, head of the A1 Bar Association. According to him, Cosmik either really has financial difficulties, or the company does not agree with the amount of taxes charged. In this case, the network can challenge the decision to collect the debt, which will allow it to avoid bankruptcy, the expert adds.

Kosmik has not developed for a long time, the network needs investments to update the concept, Pavel Lyulin believes. In its centers, the network has focused on bowling, the popularity of which is rapidly declining, agrees Alexey Vanchugov, managing partner of Vanchugov & Partners. The restrictions on entertainment centers that were in place at the height of the pandemic made the company’s activities even more difficult, Pavel Lyulin notes.

According to SPARK-Interfax, if in 2017-2018 the network’s revenue reached 1.1-1.2 billion rubles, then by the end of 2019 this figure fell by almost 17%, to 993 million rubles, in 2020 year – three times, up to 381 million rubles, in 2021 – four times, up to 275 million rubles. The decline in revenue led to a reduction in the profitability of Kosmik, follows from the express analysis of SPARK-Interfax. So, in 2020, this indicator for the company decreased by 23.3% year-on-year, in 2021 – by 34.3%. Thus, the analysis says, “it can be concluded that the financial position of CJSC Kosmik is negative”.

In general, the amusement park market has been hit the hardest by the pandemic, as restrictions on their visits have repeatedly occurred during periods of maximum traffic for such establishments, says Dmitry Dedov, senior adviser at the law firm Ingvarr. Kommersant’s interlocutor in the industry notes that this market segment has not yet been able to fully recover from COVID-19.

Alina Savitskaya