Investors are purchasing jewelry – Kommersant

As Kommersant discovered, the production assets of Bronnitsky Jeweler, one of the oldest Russian jewelry chains, have changed hands. It became a company associated with the owners of Vnukovo airport. Experts do not exclude that in the future the new investor will try to consolidate the entire business of the company. In recent years, Bronnitsky Jeweler has been reducing its share in the market, which itself is far from rapid growth: analysts note a decrease in the number of buyers of jewelry stores while the average bill is growing against the backdrop of rising prices for precious metals.

On September 13, Yunox Company JSC received 99% of Amethyst LLC, which, in turn, at the end of the same month became the sole owner of two structures of the Bronnitsky Jeweler retail chain – Prominvest LLC and New Concepts LLC “, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. In the SPARK database, the ultimate owners of Unox are hidden. But this legal entity is found on the list of owners of 11% of Vnukovo Airport. In December 2021, Interfax reported that Unox is connected with private shareholders of Vnukovo Vitaly Vantsev and Vladimir Skoch. Vnukovo and Bronnitsky Jeweler did not answer Kommersant. Unox phones were not answered on September 29.

In the materials of Bronnitsky Jeweler, Prominvest is mentioned as the lessee of equipment for the Bronnitsky Jewelry Factory (BJZ), and New Concepts is the structure that manages the property of the enterprise. On the website of the Bronnitsy administration, New Concepts LLC is named as the owner of the jewelry factory. However, according to SPARK, 90% of BYUZ belongs to Kamil Nigmatullin, 10% to the general director of the enterprise, Ilya Chepik. It was not possible to contact them.

BYUZ is also developing the Bronnitsky Jeweler retail chain, which, according to its own data, has more than 2 thousand stores in Russia and the CIS. According to Infoline, at the end of 2022, the network ranked tenth among jewelry sellers with a market share of 0.88%. Over the same period, the company’s revenue decreased by 14%, to RUB 2.71 billion. VAT included.

Managing Director of Peregrine Capital Dmitry Gabyshev believes that gaining control over the assets of Bronnitsky Jeweler is the first stage of a larger transaction. In his opinion, in the future, the entire wholesale and retail business of BYUZ can be consolidated by one investor.

In general, according to Focus Technologies, the number of buyers in Moscow jewelry stores in April-September decreased by 8%, while the average bill increased by 23%. In Sokolov stores in Moscow, traffic fell by 4%, but in June and July it grew by an average of 6%. The 585*Golden network says that consumers actually buy less often, but more expensive goods. General Director of the Association of Jewelers Vadim Serov notes that the growth of the average bill is influenced by the demand for heavy items made of gold and with precious stones, as well as exchange prices of the metal. But, in his opinion, the current increase in quotations on the stock exchange will not soon affect the retail price: players have stocks of products.

Due to the rise in gold prices in September 2023 by 70% year-on-year, demand continues to shift towards budget silver jewelry, notes Vladimir Zboikov, executive director of the Russian Jewelers Guild. The average cost of such jewelry at the beginning of autumn 2023 was about 2 thousand rubles, gold products – about 13 thousand rubles, adds Mr. Serov. “585*Golden” says that in the country as a whole, prices for gold jewelry increased by 25% year-on-year, and the average bill increased by 33.5%. The head of the Sokolov analytical center, Alina Kolpakova, notes that average market retail prices from December 2022 to the end of August 2023 increased by 15%. According to the Sokolov analytical center, in the first half of 2023, the Russian jewelry market grew by 1.2% year-on-year, to 141.6 billion rubles. The Association of Jewelers predicts an increase in sales volumes by the end of 2023 by approximately 8%.

Alina Savitskaya, Aigul Abdullina