Svyaznoy was declared bankrupt

The arbitration court declared Svyaznoy Network LLC, the parent structure of the once large Russian retailer, bankrupt. The company has opened bankruptcy proceedings, and now its assets will be sold to pay off debts. Bankruptcy also threatens the parent structure of the LLC, the Cypriot DTS Retail LTD. Lawyers see the risks of bringing shareholders and top managers of Svyaznoy Network to subsidiary liability, given the identification of signs of deliberate bankruptcy. Experts say it will not have an impact on the retail electronics market.

On December 12, the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to declare Set Svyaznoy LLC bankrupt and introduced bankruptcy proceedings into the company. A record of this decision appeared in the file of arbitration cases; the reasoning part has not yet been published.

Svyaznoy was created in 1995 by Maxim Nogotkov. Then the company was called “Maxus”, later it changed the brand. In 2014, Mikhail Prokhorov’s ONEXIM group, to whom Svyaznoy owed $130 million, sold the rights of claim to Oleg Malis’ Solvers company, and he eventually became the controlling shareholder of the network. In 2018, as a result of the retailer’s merger with Euroset, MegaFon received 25%.

In December 2022 in an interview RBC MegaFon CEO Khachatur Pombukhchan said that the operator sold a stake in Svyaznoy without naming the buyer. Later “Vedomosti” wrote that the share was bought by Oleg Malis’ structures.

In March, Network Svyaznoy itself filed for bankruptcy, and in June the arbitration court introduced a monitoring procedure at the enterprise. According to the bankruptcy law, it is intended to verify the validity of creditors’ claims and establish the size of the debtor’s assets in order to make a further decision on the possibility or impossibility of restoring solvency. At that time, the retailer’s debts to counterparties, including Alfa Bank, Sovcombank, Merlion, VimpelCom, Citilink, exceeded 15 billion rubles. Already in September, the company began to close retail outlets in Moscow and St. Petersburg – more than 400 stores in total.

Then the head structure of the retailer was also under threat of bankruptcy: on October 3, Alfa Bank filed a lawsuit to declare bankrupt the Cypriot DTS Retail LTD, which owns 69.25% in Svyaznoy Network.

The amount of claims was not given in the statement, but, judging by data from the arbitration file, the bank filed claims for 7.67 billion rubles. and 548 million rubles. (see “Kommersant” dated September 13).

After Network Svyaznoy is declared bankrupt as part of the bankruptcy procedure, the insolvency administrator must conduct an inventory of the property and include it in the bankruptcy estate, which will be sold to satisfy the claims of creditors, Forward Legal lawyer Danil Bukharin clarifies: “It can be assumed that the bankruptcy estate will include commodity balances, movable and immovable property, accounts receivable, trademarks.”

In addition, “it is possible to bring the persons controlling the debtor (its owners and managers) to subsidiary liability,” adds Mr. Bukharin – “RIA News” reported that the interim manager revealed signs of deliberate bankruptcy.

TelecomDaily CEO Denis Kuskov notes that the bankruptcy of Svyaznoy Network will not have a significant effect on the electronics distribution market: “It is saturated with large players, including DNS, M.Video, networks of telecom operators, and mono-brand stores. “Svyaznoy” simply could not find a place in the changing market.”

Nikita Korolev