Creditors bombarded with parcels – Kommersant

The bankruptcy of PickPoint, a major operator of the PickPoint parcel locker network, which has declared insolvency, promises to be difficult for creditors. The total debt of the company, mainly to Sberbank, exceeds 2.6 billion rubles, and the unprofitability of the service complicates the recovery of the amount. Lawyers do not rule out bringing the PickPoint shareholders, including the structure of the French postal service Group La Poste and the Elbrus Capital funds, to subsidiary liability, but add that it will not be easy to get payments from them.

The debt of the PickPoint logistics service that declared bankruptcy to financial creditors and suppliers exceeded 2.6 billion rubles, a Kommersant source close to the company’s proceedings with counterparties said. According to him, the company cannot pay off its debts on its own, as it has shown losses in recent years. PickPoint “Kommersant” did not answer.

The PickPoint manager, Network of Automated Pick-up Points LLC, was one of the largest operators of automatic parcel terminals in Russia; at its peak, it included about 6,000 such devices throughout the country. But at the end of 2022, the company had difficulties with customers and counterparties. In April of this year, PickPoint notified partners of the termination of operations due to financial difficulties due to the withdrawal of foreign retailers from Russia and the inability to obtain funding from a Western investor (see Kommersant dated April 4).

In early April, the Network of Automated Pickup Points announced its intention to file for its own bankruptcy, and in July the Moscow Arbitration Court introduced a monitoring procedure in the company. In 2022, the company’s revenue decreased by 34.8% to RUB 2.3 billion, with a net loss of RUB 351.35 million. against a loss of 262.61 million rubles. a year earlier. Since the beginning of 2023, 444 claims have been filed against PickPoint in the amount of 821.3 million rubles, according to SPARK.

Sberbank also filed for bankruptcy of PickPoint. According to a representative of the bank, the current debt of the service slightly exceeds 1 billion rubles. and the bank is working on bankruptcy proceedings. As noted in Sberbank, the logistics operator did not announce plans to repay the debt in a pre-trial order or settle it through an amicable agreement. From the materials of the arbitration court it follows that almost 218 million rubles. PickPoint owes Sovcombank, the rest of the amount falls on suppliers and other counterparties. Sovcombank did not provide a comment.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the “Network of Automated Delivery Points” is owned by the Cypriot PickPoint Delivery System Ltd, whose beneficiaries are not disclosed. According to a Kommersant source, 29.07% of the Cypriot company belongs to the French GeoPost group, which is controlled by the country’s national postal service Group La Poste. Another 39.78% is owned by the Elbrus Capital funds, the remaining 31.15% are management, says the interlocutor of Kommersant.

This is indirectly confirmed by the financial statements for 2022 of the GeoPost-owned logistics operator DPD Russia, which states that the Network of Automated Pickup Points is part of GeoPost. Elbrus Capital’s HeadHunter profile also states that the company’s funds have invested in PickPoint. In Group La Poste and Elbrus Capital, Kommersant did not answer.

Roman Parkhomenko, a partner at Pen & Paper, notes that a relatively small percentage of claims are often satisfied during bankruptcy, unless they are secured by a pledge of property. According to him, in recent years, every major bankruptcy has been accompanied by claims against shareholders for subsidiary liability.

Lenders may try to involve shareholders in the debt collection process, but everything will depend on the legislation of the country where the shareholder structure is registered, said Tamrin Darbakov, a lawyer at Uppercase Legal. Laws usually seek to protect shareholders who are not personally liable for a company’s debts, he said. Attorney-at-law, adviser to the bankruptcy practice of AB BVMP Dmitry Palin also notes that for subsidiary liability it is necessary to establish the direct participation of shareholders in bringing the company to bankruptcy. The status of a shareholder’s foreign person does not affect the procedure, he adds, but the actual execution of a judicial act is possible only if the shareholders have property in Russia.

Alina Savitskaya