Founder of Korablik Alexei Zuev became Detsky Mir’s largest shareholder

Former CEO of a gold mining company “Pole” Pavel Grachev and its ex-financial director Mikhail Stiskin sold their shares (almost 20% of shares) in Detsky Mir to a consortium of investors headed by Alexei Zuev, founder of the Korablik chain of stores, Detsky Mir said in a statement. It says that as of May 2, 2023, Zuev and his partners own 29.9% of the authorized capital of Detsky Mir. From whom they bought the remaining package is not disclosed. But earlier, Dmitry Klenov, the managing partner of the Altus Capital fund, who owned just about 10% of the company’s shares, sold his share in this network.

The value of the deal was not disclosed. Of course, it depended on the negotiation process between the parties, says Veles Capital analyst Artem Mikhaylin. According to him, if we focus on the price at which Detsky Mir last bought back its shares (71.5 rubles), then such a package could cost new investors about 16 billion rubles. But it is likely that Zuev and his partners received a discount given the current transformation of the network into a non-public company, the expert concludes.

Detsky Mir is the largest seller of children’s goods in Russia. As of July 30, 2022, the company operated 1,100 stores in Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Its revenue in 2022 increased by 5% to RUB 178 billion, while its net profit increased by 32.6% to RUB 9.92 billion.

From 1996 to 2020 one of the largest shareholders of the network was AFK Sistema (owned up to 70.5% of the shares). In January 2016, the corporation sold a 23.1% stake to the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund (RCIF) for RUB 9.75 billion. A year later, Detsky Mir held an IPO on the Moscow Exchange. As a result of the SPO in 2019 AFK Sistema and RCIF sold 23.7% of the retailer for almost 16 billion rubles. In mid-June 2020, the partners collectively reduced their shares by another 16%, earning RUB 11 billion from the deal. And already in September 2020, the shareholders sold all their remaining shares of Detsky Mir (20.38% and 4.62%, respectively) for 20.7 billion rubles.

Top managers became the largest owners of the network “Poles” and Altus Capital, as well as a number of unnamed foreign shareholders. The latter withdrew from capital after Detsky Mir announced in November 2022 that it plans to become a non-public company. It said that the network would spend 25-35 billion rubles. to buy back shares from those who disagree with the reorganization.