The shareholders of Lenta did not see eye to eye. Who is the owner of the tape?

People's grocery stores in Russia, located within walking distance, “Pyaterochka”, “Kopeyka”, “Narodny”, etc. belong to... foreign companies.

Perhaps this information will give a new look at why prices are rising, why supermarkets do not support the Russian manufacturer, why chains of small retail grocery stores are being destroyed everywhere, and where the money is going.

Products and their prices are more serious, more painful and more important to every person in the country than distant and incomprehensible politics, economics and finance.

Here is a list of countries where the largest grocery chains are registered, with hundreds of thousands of stores throughout Russia

1. "Auchan" (France),

2. “Okay” (Luxembourg),

3. “Pyaterochka” (Netherlands),

4. “Crossroads” (Netherlands),

5. "Carousel" (Netherlands),

6. “MetroCash&Carry” (Germany),

7. “Ribbon” (British Virgin Islands),

8. "Globe" (Cyprus),

9. “Billa” (Austria),

10. “Selgros” (Germany),

11. "Leroy Merlin" (France),

12. “Magnit” (Cyprus offshore Lavreno Ltd.),

13. “Kopeyka” (Netherlands),

14. "We" (Netherlands),

15. Mercado Supercenter (Netherlands),

16. “Basket” (Netherlands),

17. "Paterson" (Netherlands),

18. "People" (Netherlands),

19. “Simbirka” (Netherlands),

20. “Provision” (Netherlands),

21. "Fair" (Netherlands),

22. "Troika" (Netherlands),

23. “Family” (Netherlands),

24. “Thrifty family” (Netherlands),

25. “World of Products” (Netherlands),

26. "A5" (Netherlands),

27. "Spar" (Netherlands),

28. “Universam” (Netherlands),

29. “Tamerlane” (Netherlands),

30. “Purchase” (Netherlands).

“A very large percentage of the market and a significant segment of our wallet falls on goods of necessity that we must support every day.

This includes personal hygiene products. This includes detergents. These are other household chemicals that we use almost automatically. But you go to the store and what do you see? Foreign brands. Infinitely expensive"

- says Gleb Veshaev, director of the Krass information and analytical center for social technologies.

“It turns out that foreign capital has penetrated with its tentacles into every cell of Russian business. And here, locally, chain hypermarkets take a protective position precisely in relation to Western manufacturers.

The chain closes, turning Russia into a tool for pumping money out of the Russian population and sending it to third countries.

Chain stores are the main striking force of Western business. It is they who, like huge vacuum cleaners, suck in cash flows and take currency abroad. So far, hypermarkets are openly working against Russia.

Yes, hypermarkets have destroyed the Russian retail chain. Yes, they left a large part of the population without work and without the ability to support their families. Then at least give normal service in return.

But he's not there. Lobbying the interests of Western brands, undervaluing, playing with currency prices - everything is aimed at supporting the foreign market on Russian territory and drowning Russian manufacturers. For now, hypermarkets function like huge factories for exporting profits from Russia.”

“Despite all the political statements of the networks that they are keeping their prices, the entire burden of fulfilling this statement has fallen on the producers. The networks themselves have not cut their costs. They passed everything on to the manufacturer.

It's the producers who keep prices normal. And they not only hold it, but even reduce it.

Networks, instead of the stated reduction or retention of prices, also raised prices for manufacturers.

If earlier the manufacturer returned 5 percent to the network, now it is 10 percent in the form of, so to speak, internal bonuses. And here we also need to add various fees, marketing charges, etc. Even logistics, which has also been reduced today, has placed an additional burden on the shoulders of the manufacturer.”

Veshaev believes that there really can be no talk of any import substitution, because the West does not intend to negotiate with Russia. And grocery store chains are “the striking force of Western business.” They suck money out of the population and send it abroad at a tremendous pace. It has become abundantly clear that grocery chain stores are now part of the political system.

Lobbying the interests of Western brands, understating prices, playing with currency prices - everything is aimed at supporting the foreign market on Russian territory and drowning Russian manufacturers.

But each of us, for our part, has the power to choose the place where to buy the goods. Even in Western chain stores, we can choose a domestic product or product instead of an imported one and, thus, “vote with our rubles.”

“The difference between a pharmaceutical company and a hypermarket is that, having huge operating costs, you often produce nothing,” jokes Oleg Zherebtsov, who made his fortune in grocery stores. About 20 years ago, he founded the Lenta chain, which is now one of the top 10 retailers in Russia. Zherebtsov invests the money from the sale of his stake in Lenta in a market that he himself calls “complex” and “small” - pharmaceuticals

Oleg Zherebtsov

​"I wanted to jump into a completely different industry"

— Let's talk about how you chose pharmaceuticals. In 2009, after selling your stake in Lenta, in the program “Business Secrets with Oleg Tinkov” you said that you see two areas that are growing - the agricultural industry and medicine in the broad sense. Why did you choose medicine?

— Firstly, I talked about sectors that have potential for growth. They may not grow on their own, but they have the potential to grow. This is an important note. Secondly, medicine is a fairly broad concept, I would like to focus on pharmaceuticals, on the production of drugs. I have always looked at sectors where there is a clear possibility of technological disruption. It just so happened that in our country, various sectors of the economy grew spasmodically. So, although there were a huge number of grocery stores [in the 1990s], the explosive growth of chains occurred in the early 2000s. In my opinion, now it’s just pharmaceuticals’ turn. Why pharmaceuticals, I am often asked this question...

-...But not agro-industry?

— I still believe that in the agricultural industry it is also possible to use a huge amount of technology and innovation and, as a result, increase labor productivity. Gigantic mechanization, replacing the old with the new, increasing the role of genetic engineering, for example - all this is achievable in the production of products. It’s just that at some stage you need to make a choice; you won’t have enough strength to do everything.
Perhaps I wanted something completely radical, I wanted to jump into a completely different industry, try my hand at something different. If my universal business principles work in one industry, why shouldn't they work in another?

— Many entrepreneurs who made fortunes in other businesses, at some point began to invest in the development of medicines at the call of their hearts, I would say. How important were social and perhaps ethical reasons for you?

“I treated this as a missionary project from the very beginning. I understood in advance that there was a chance that it would not take place, there would be no operating profit, or it would have to wait a very long time. I was ready for any development in the scenario. But it so happened that after completing the construction of the plant and starting sales last year, 2014, and we have only been working for about 15 months, I discovered a tremendous demand for our products, for our sterile liquid medicines. And coupled with the growth of the euro and the increase in the price of imported medicines, we have received demand that is now loading all our capacities at 100%, and we have orders for many months in advance. So we found ourselves in a good situation.

After the conflicts at Lenta, Oleg Zherebtsov is in no hurry to attract investors to Grotex: for now he is the only owner of the company (Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC)

“I will become the most unhappy person if we sell Lenta”

Oleg Zherebtsov was born on May 21, 1968 in Bryansk. He grew up in Kabardino-Balkaria, in the small town of Tyrnyauz. I studied at the Mining Institute in Moscow for a year. After the army he studied at the Mining Institute in Leningrad, but did not graduate.

"Tape" and "Norma"

In 1993 he founded the Lenta retail chain, the first stores opened in St. Petersburg. “I think that I will become the most unhappy person if we ever sell Lenta,” Zherebtsov said in an interview with Sekret Firmy in 2005. Two years later, Zherebtsov launched another retail project - the Norma supermarket chain, also in St. Petersburg.

Sail and conflict

In the mid-2000s, Zherebtsov took up sailing; in 2008-2009, he assembled Team Russia with his own money and took part in the Volvo Ocean Race around the world regatta. Participation in the race cost him €20 million.

In 2008, a conflict broke out between Zherebtsov and the second major shareholder of Lenta, August Meyer. Among the claims that Meyer’s supporters made to Zherebtsov were the parallel development of “Norma” as a personal project and a departure from managing “Lenta” for the sake of participating in sailing competitions.

Deal and new business

In the fall of 2009, Zherebtsov completely left the company, selling his stake for $110 million to TPG Capital and VTB Capital funds - he had to pay more than half of this amount for personal obligations. Zherebtsov sold Norma in 2011.

Using money received from the sale of stores, as well as borrowed funds, Zherebtsov created the pharmaceutical company Grotex in 2010. The Solopharm plant, built from scratch in St. Petersburg, began production in the summer of 2014. According to him, Zherebtsov invested €74 million in the first two stages of the plant, and plans to invest another €32-33 million in the third.

— When you were building Lenta, you yourself went shopping a lot and asked people what they were missing, what they needed. When starting a pharmaceutical project, for example, choosing niches, did you act in the same way?

— This project was no exception. Of course, you also read analytics, look at trends, growth, dynamics. But, I believe, the shortest marketing, the simplest, is to communicate with people, with pharmacy owners, with doctors and with consumers and ask what they are missing.

I had to interview a huge number of people. But everyone says the same thing: “Russian medicines are of poor quality, we don’t trust them: import, import and import again.” Go to the pharmacy, look at the shelf, there are all imported drugs everywhere. As a country, we import 82% of medicines by value. This is a gigantic imbalance that was born due to the backwardness of our pharmaceutical industry. In my opinion, you can always do what is imported, simply by simply minimizing transport costs.

We produce liquid dosage forms, and 95% of liquid sterile medicines are water. That is, in essence, importers of liquid medicines transport water across the border. We are located in St. Petersburg, 10 km from Lake Ladoga. We purify water here, mix substances, auxiliary substances and create added value within these walls, at this plant. We invested €74 million in this building, and I believe we have touched almost all sectors of liquid sterile forms: hospital solutions, injections, ophthalmic, nasal drugs, ear medications, sprays.

— Why did you choose the segment of liquid sterile preparations? The commercial director of your company, Mikhail Polozov, said that to start the production of tablets, it is enough, roughly speaking, to sell two personal cars, and the production of liquid drugs costs orders of magnitude more.

— I have always seen any business as a kind of challenge, as a challenge. We attracted 31 companies to build this plant: there were a lot of projects, but they were all interconnected. It was a challenge, work for several years, three years almost non-stop, in order for the plant to start operating.

It is clear that I have maximized all my financial resources to do this. Pharmaceuticals have a barrier to entry that amounts to tens of millions of euros. And it is obvious that the higher the barrier to entry, the lower the competition. But, on the other hand, not everything is about money. A lot depends on the team, the people you work with, and [technological] solutions. And I tried to take the latest Western solutions. If the same plant were now being built in Belgium or Spain, it would look exactly the same as our plant, built according to GMP standards, looks like. And the products we make can be exported to these countries. Our drugs are no worse in quality than European ones. In fact, we created an enterprise with the prospect of 10-15 years of not being disadvantaged by competition in terms of quality and efficiency.

Oleg Zherebtsov says that to develop Solopharm he works 12 hours a day, six days a week; there is not enough time even for his favorite sailing sport (Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC)

“In pharmaceuticals, no one responds to the wishes of the consumer”

— You said earlier that Lenta is a compilation of 400 stores from all over the world. Can you say the same about the Solopharm plant?

— I probably didn’t visit 400 pharmaceutical plants, maybe only 15 or 17. You look at any ideas: how people change clothes, how to reduce the area for unloading products. I transferred my logistics experience here. When designing a plant, it is very important to consider internal logistics - this is something I have always loved to do. This is my hobby - counting millimeters, pennies and thinking about the shortest internal logistics, the shortest chains of movement of raw materials, packaging: how to reduce [the number of employees] to one or two people on the lines, how to create those technological solutions that would be better than competitors, in terms of cost. And I like to make mass-produced things cheap - I really like it. This is exactly what people in our country do not like to do. They always point their finger at the most expensive objects, no matter if they are medicines or cars, and say: “Well, we will make a few copies, but the product will be at the very top of the marketing pyramid: it doesn’t matter that there are few consumers, but the price is high.”

But I loved doing mass things. By creating hypermarkets [Lenta], we allowed millions of citizens to buy products of guaranteed quality, cheaply, in clean rooms. We can say that I transferred this plot of cost formation from hypermarkets to this enterprise, where a million ampoules and a huge number of sterile liquid dosage forms for the general public are now made every day. Our strategy is very simple. Using the same molecules and substances [as our competitors], we want to reduce the cost of drugs by 30-40%. In fact, the cost of the substance in the wholesale price of the drug rarely exceeds 10%.

— You used the experience of various foreign pharmaceutical companies. When you got into pharmaceuticals, was there a company that you would call the Walmart of pharmaceuticals?

— At Walmart, I first of all liked the character of Sam Walton himself [the founder of the chain], his leadership qualities. This is the path of an entrepreneur, the path of mistakes. After all, he got into Walmart at a relatively late age. The period that he went through as a person, the culture that he built, the atmosphere in the company - this is what was closest to me.

I have not yet come across such a [company] in pharmaceuticals. After all, I am an early person in this business, I don’t know many people in this business, to be honest. I am often asked the question: “This person is so famous.” I say: “I just don’t know him.” Because I dealt with this idea on my own and was not guided by what was happening in our country in terms of experience or practice. In fact, we reproduced Western experience and built a plant here without regard to anyone else.

— You said that you transferred, in particular, your logistics experience to Solopharm, but what else?

— It is clear that the management culture is also transferred. I found in the pharmaceutical industry an archaic form of management, unproductive work, quite slow. I have 22 years of entrepreneurial experience, and I can somehow compare with different businesses.

In pharmaceuticals there was not that dynamic business culture that I am used to seeing in living companies, especially in the FMCG [consumer goods] market, where competition is higher, where there is a fight for every ruble, and the dynamics and speed of reaction to market changes is colossal . In pharmaceuticals, no one reacts to market changes, to consumer desires: that different packaging is needed, that the design needs to be changed. In this sense, we are probably ready to listen to consumers better and take their opinions into account better. I was used to quick decisions, short meetings or no meetings at all, and the use of electronic means for communication, and to my surprise, I did not see all this in pharmaceuticals. We have a very flat structure: 11 people report to me. Good team, minimal meetings, lots of emails, hard work 12 hours a day.

I had to, in fact, impose the experience that I had into the pharmaceutical business, and many people point their fingers at their temples and say: “This is not accepted, this is not possible, why are you doing this? It’s not like that in our pharmaceutical market...” - and so on. I've heard a lot of this.

“I expected to ensure the supply of drugs to the army”

— In the main company “Grotex” you are the only owner. But there are also companies in the group that are engaged in scientific development, and there you have partners. These, as I understand it, are research scientists involved in development?

“I pay due respect to those people who, over the years, perhaps decades, have developed knowledge about some molecules, about some drugs that they were not able to commercialize. Because this is a huge job, not only to create a molecule or formula, but a big job to bring any drug to the market: to produce it correctly, to make it stable, so that the drug has not only an active substance, but also excipients that give it has a long period of use, create the correct packaging. The formula is not yet a cure. This is the same as the meat running across a field in the Kostroma region is not packaged meat lying on the shelves in a hypermarket, cleaned and checked for quality.
Therefore, I believe it is right to create partnerships for original drugs. The partners are technological scientists from the Soviet era or from the early Russian period, they have this knowledge about molecules. Solopharm will be primarily involved in production. Research is a separate job. The majority of the Solopharm drug portfolio - 85-90% - are still generics, well-known open formulas, for which there is no need to create a partnership.

From store to IPO

Lenta began with the first store opened by Oleg Zherebtsov in St. Petersburg in 1993. Zherebtsov actually began opening hypermarkets in 1999. In 2002, in order to get money to develop the network, he sold 40% of the company to investor August Meyer. In the fall of 2009, after a conflict with Meyer, Zherebtsov sold his shares in the network for $110 million to TPG Capital and VTB Capital.

In 2010, a second shareholder conflict occurred at Lenta between August Meyer and his minority supporters, on the one hand, and the shareholders of TPG Capital, VTB Capital and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which joined them, on the other. In the fall of 2011, Meyer and his supporters sold their shares for $1.1 billion.

In 2014, Lenta held an IPO on the London Stock Exchange. At the end of 2014, the company took sixth place among the largest retailers in Russia. In the RBC 500 ranking for 2015, the company took 49th place.

— It was somewhat unexpected for me to see these partnerships: in some you don’t even have a controlling stake. Because after the conflicts at Lenta, in which many people were involved, individual participants, for example Sergei Yushchenko, told me that they began to be much more careful about partnerships. Have you ever had that fear?

— Each partnership means rights to one drug. There are currently only four such partnerships. And the majority of drugs - 57 [most of them are still in the process of registration] - are produced by Grotex itself, without any partnership. Partnerships are separate agreements for a formula and for a patent that support the rights of those people who came up with this formula and researched it. But this in no way applies to Grotex LLC, to the balance sheet, to the rights to the plant. So I don't know. Sergei Yushchenko himself, as far as I understand, received a fairly large package for being an options manager; otherwise such a miracle might not have happened to him. He got into Lenta and received a fairly large option. He was neither the founder of the company nor a shareholder.

— The pharmaceuticals and hospital segment, where you are now actively working, are very tied to government procurement. You haven’t worked with this in retail, but here it’s very important. Did this issue with the volume of government orders at the very beginning of your journey not scare you?

“Walking along the unbeaten path, I kept expecting to see clashes or points of interaction with the state, I kept waiting and waiting for where they would appear. But, believe it or not, I discovered a complete lack of any contact with government agencies at the stages of product sales.

I hoped to somehow ensure the supply of drugs to the army, or the Ministry of Emergency Situations, or hospitals, but, as it turned out, distributors and dealers do this professionally. We sell to distributors, we have concluded 116 contracts with companies for the distribution of medicines in Russia, these companies participate in tenders. That layer of wholesalers, resellers, or resellers, whatever we call them, these people perform the supply function, delivering packs and boxes of medicines to each hospital. Spreading across Russia, we sell drugs 10 thousand km from here, to Khabarovsk or Vladivostok. I know that our drugs are already available in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

I was surprised at how few corrupt ways of doing business there are in this industry. You will be surprised that the price of, say, a bottle of infusion solution is the same almost all year. You can drop the price a little, raise it a little, but the fluctuation is around 4-5%. You can’t even imagine to whom you can corruptly sell this! Diversifying into these 116 companies allowed us to not have to think about certain things. Each company has its own regional significance and transports products.

— Price is important in tenders. You are located in the north-west, but are sold in Khabarovsk: even if your cost is lower than that of a local manufacturer there, logistics are added to your price. Moreover, as I understand, it is not cheap, because the preparations - water - weigh quite a lot.

- This is a matter of mathematics. I believed that if we send our products to Novosibirsk, they become 7% more expensive for the cheapest drugs. Another thing is how much lower our cost is. If it is 10% lower than the guys who produce these products locally, then ultimately we have an advantage of 3%. I'm afraid to judge, but besides prices, the question is probably also consumer qualities or properties.

— You wanted to participate in the St. Petersburg pharmaceutical cluster, but your application was rejected because the project was not recognized as innovative.

- Yes, they didn’t recognize it, but what can you do? The pharmaceutical cluster was created mainly to reduce the initial costs borne by the investor. And in this regard, we also tried to reduce our costs. But we were told that we were not innovative enough. OK, someone made this decision, for God's sake. I bought this piece of land for $4 million, but then we rushed twice as fast as everyone else.

Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC

“Pharmaceutics is filled with classified super documents”

— Now Rostec, through its subsidiary Nacimbio, is seeking to monopolize the supply of a number of drugs under government procurement. How do you feel about such initiatives?

— Being a supplier, the company [Nacimbio] does not seek to engage in development, but, in fact, consolidates assets or creates a situation where everyone is forced to sell to it, and it will be a reseller. There is no long-termism in this decision; it is not fundamental. Since the market is very complex, it will not be possible to consolidate or monopolize it, this story will fall apart.

— Is the pharmaceutical market generally moving towards consolidation? It was clear on the retail market that this would happen gradually. And in pharmaceuticals there are such different niches - is it even possible?

- Yes, of course, we are just at the beginning of the journey. Get it right: 70% of enterprises in Russia do not meet GMP standards. Their modernization and transfer to the GMP standard is a task that each company, whether public or private, will solve on its own. When most companies go through the stage of modernization and renovation, I am sure that mergers and acquisitions will take place in this market more dynamically. When the industry will turn into a business in terms of income, when the word EBITDA will be heard, when new IPO deals will flash... All this awaits the industry in five years. Now we still have a crisis, although this has affected pharmaceuticals to a lesser extent than other industries.

In addition, Western companies are now faced with the fact that their margins and operating profits are falling dramatically. Their production costs have increased very significantly when converted into rubles. And many drugs have a limit on the formation of the maximum price: the famous [abbreviation] VED [vital and essential drugs]. As a result, there is an obvious trend towards localization of production [by Western companies]. They have two obvious options: either create full-cycle sites, build factories from scratch, which they don’t have time for, or localize them at existing facilities. But they cannot work in old Soviet production facilities; they need GMP sites. This is another trend that is pushing the industry to become civilized and modern as quickly as possible. And our government, in my opinion, has already announced a fundamental transition to GMP for the third time. It kept giving a deferment, saying that here are two more years, here are three more years and so on, it has done this several times over the past ten years, as far as I remember. The last Chinese warning was issued on January 1, 2014. But, speaking slogans, we must still understand that the industry will not turn around quickly, we need to act more harshly. It's like with street parking: until you introduce a fee, there will be no point in investing in underground parking. Until the government starts closing down old factories that do not meet quality standards, there will be little incentive to invest.

— You are negotiating with foreign companies about contract manufacturing. Already have an agreement?

— We are actively working with three companies to localize their drugs in Russia, negotiations are in an advanced phase. But I have no right to disclose these companies. I’m used to acting quite freely and, when talking about something, openly citing facts, data, and figures. But pharmaceuticals are all riddled with secrets, filled with some kind of classified super-documents. From the first day you sign a huge number of non-disclosure agreements; everyone is afraid of disclosures.

— Are these companies from the top 10 largest global pharmaceutical manufacturers?

— I’m not sure about the top 10, but they are definitely in the top 20.

— Why is this production interesting to you? You said that your lines are 100% loaded for several months in advance.

— No, our capacities are 100% loaded. But we are working to double production. The project that hangs behind me is a project to double the plant; in ten months we should launch six more lines [to the existing six]. And this expansion project coincides with the interests of pharmaceutical companies in localizing production. This is the first thing. Secondly, the opportunity to collaborate with these companies is an opportunity to touch technological know-how, feel it, test it, see internal [company] documents, procedures, principles and somehow grow this culture within the company. It's a combination of things you'll never get for money. Capital is not only monetary, but also knowledge capital. I am very sensitive to what has been done over the decades. And no one will just tell you this at university or in advanced training courses.

Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC

"I saw the decline of retail"

— You stated that by the end of 2016 you want to occupy 30% of the market for liquid sterile drugs. As far as I remember, when you were in charge of Lenta, you tried not to make such clear forecasts. Why did they do this now?

— I would like to consolidate everyone around an ambitious goal. And I see that achieving this goal is possible. 30% of the market for liquid sterile dosage forms is absolutely tangible. Simply because the market is small. The food market is still an order of magnitude larger. For those drugs that we have already registered and are selling, we easily reach a 25 percent market share in the first year of operation.

— How do you estimate the market volume of all liquid sterile dosage forms that you are talking about? Infusion solutions, for example, are estimated at 5-8 billion rubles. in year.

— We didn’t count directly in money, we counted in pieces. But I wanted to say that our attempt to start making infusion solutions was just an attempt to create an infrastructure, since the water is the same, the air is the same, cleaning, testing, and so on. Relying on this segment, we immediately began making ampoules [injectable drugs]. And now the volume of ampoules exceeds the volume of production of infusions that we make. We are often considered an infusion company, but this is not true. We started with this because it is the most liquid market.

Another line that we have already begun to produce and sell is a line of retail drugs: ophthalmology, nasal drugs. This is what we as consumers see in pharmacies. And in July we produced more ophthalmic drugs than injections and infusions combined.

— But in these markets, are you gaining your share more by replacing outdated domestic production or imported ones, which have now become more expensive?

- Both. There is no single direction that we are replacing. We actively lure customers away and talk about how we are cheaper, more flexible, faster, better, and so on.
If you lower your price by 5%, you are guaranteed to get a huge demand for your product. There is such a high degree of sensitivity to price and to the drugs you sell. But this is a liquid market, the basis and success of which mainly lies in the structure of your cost. That’s why we still have debates about whether another cleaner is needed at the plant or not. We do not have a lawyer, for example, in the company. We try to outsource as many things as possible. This is the principle of few people and high productivity. For example, I’m not sure that our competitors calculate revenue per employee or percentage of margin per employee in rubles.

— Four years ago it was an open field, the same weeds grew here (points out the window). We launched the lines in July of 2014. The difference between a pharmaceutical company and a hypermarket is that, having huge operating costs, you often do not produce anything. You wait about a year for drug registration. Our revenue for this year will be close to 1.5 billion rubles. And next year we want to double it, to make 2.8 billion rubles.

What does Solopharm produce?

The pharmaceutical company Solopharm (Grotex LLC) was founded by Oleg Zherebtsov in 2010, and in 2013 the company completed the construction of its own plant for the production of liquid sterile drugs in the Krasnogvardeysky district of St. Petersburg. In 2014, Solopharm received a license to produce drugs and released the first batch of drugs in the summer. The revenue of Grotex LLC, according to SPARK, in 2014 amounted to 195 million rubles, Zherebtsov’s plan for this year is about 1.5 billion rubles. Now the plant produces hospital solutions, injections, ophthalmic, nasal medications, ear medications, and sprays.

— You previously called your EBITDA margin 52%. What period is this for?

— In 2015, the order will be approximately the same.

— Is this a high figure? Do other major players have similar numbers?

— I did not compare these indicators, because not many companies talk about them or even use the term EBITDA. But this figure indicates the enormous potential of pharmaceuticals in our country and the lack of competition. EBITDA in retail is 7-8% of revenue and net profit [net profit] 1%, at best 2-2.5%. This is competition. What kind of competition is there?

— Regarding investments, I want to clarify: you mentioned the total investments in two stages of €74 million and in the third stage another about €33 million. Can you give these figures in rubles?

— I have been an entrepreneur since 1988-1989, then I started doing business in this city. Maybe, in my old practice - inflation was 1000% in 1991 - I was used to counting in dollars or euros.

— Of all invested funds, what is the share of borrowed funds?

“I wouldn’t like to talk about it simply because I don’t think it’s necessary to reveal it.” I use bank financing, but it is not decisive.

— You received $110 million for your stake in Lenta. How much do you have left after paying off personal loans and other obligations?

“I have never commented on this issue and still do not want to do so.”

— Did you invest funds from the sale of Lenta into Grotex, and later from the sale of Norma too?

Photo: Ekaterina Kuzmina / RBC

— Why did you decide to sell the Norma chain? It was also quite a long project for you.

“I saw the decline of retail.” I still believe that nothing new can be done in this industry. In my opinion, all the new retail startups will not provide any significant growth in the near future. Three years ago, the idea that retail would stagnate seemed obvious to me. You see now what is happening to many companies. Either they show a negative Like-for-like [comparable sales in stores operating for more than a year], or they greatly shrink their retail space, or they leave some markets. And in general, the drop in consumption proves this.
I made an attempt to create supermarkets a long time ago, I called on Lenta shareholders to do this - to develop a chain of supermarkets. But only now Lenta began to develop them. Why this was not supported then, I cannot say. Perhaps the shareholders were stubborn. “Norma,” in my opinion, was a good project, but still its growth rate was significantly lower [than that of “Lenta”]. So I saw other possibilities. There was a period of my sailing for 4.5 years.

- Why was it - you don’t study anymore?

- No. I don't have time for anything right now. I work 12 hours a day, six days a week. I have been formally and actually the general director here for almost three years, since January 1, 2013, and I go to work here like everyone else, from morning to evening.

— For you, is this some kind of period after which you will be able to devote time to sailing? You had big plans.

— I had educational projects, and I still have them: I am a member of the board of trustees of the European University, to which I devote some time. I also want to build an engineering and technical university with good laboratories, technical schools, and foreign teachers. It must be a private university. This is an old dream for me. I wanted to do this maybe in the mid-2000s. Now these plans are being postponed due to the fact that we must invest part of the funds to expand the lines. I don’t know, maybe it will take five years, seven years to start this project. Three more years to implement. Perhaps I still have 20 years of active life and I will make it.

— You talk about stagnation in the retail market, but Lenta is now showing some of the best performance on the market.

- Yes? I don’t follow Lenta’s activities, honestly. In five years I have never been to these stores. I cut off this story, it went away. There was a period, 14 years of my life from the moment of foundation, when I had three movers, an accountant and an assistant, it was an interesting period. It seems to me that the company as an entrepreneurial project has achieved obvious [successful] things. What you are listing now confirms this. I'm talking about the same thing now: we need to create an operating cost base [at Solopharm], an operating business model that would be sustainable for many, many years.

It all started with an ordinary warehouse store. Today, the Lenta Group of Companies has 191 hypermarkets and 49 supermarkets throughout Russia. Today there are more than 20 thousand items of all kinds of goods on its shelves. And among them are our own brands “Lenta” and “365 days”

 

Reference Information:

• Company name: Lenta LLC;
• Legal form of activity: limited liability company;
• Kind of activity: Wholesale trade of food products, including drinks, and tobacco products;
• Revenue for 2016: 351.3 billion rubles;
• Largest beneficiary: TPG Capital
• Number of personnel as of December 31, 2016: 45,689 people;
• The site of the company: http://www.lenta.com

Lenta is a hypermarket chain well known to Russian consumers, managed by Lenta Ltd. She was among the first to shape the culture of wholesale and retail trade in Russia. From a warehouse store in the cash & carry format in the northern capital at st. Zamshina, 27/1 and two working cash registers, the company has made its way to a network of federal hypermarkets and one of the leaders in Russian retail. This is exactly how the story of Lenta developed.

Going back to the past

The first store was opened by Oleg Zherebtsov in 1993 in St. Petersburg. It was designed for wholesale buyers: owners of restaurants and cafes, small retailers. The assortment included confectionery, alcoholic beverages, and the most popular varieties of tea and coffee. Low prices have been Lenta's main advantage from the very beginning.

In 1999, he opened the first hypermarket under the Lenta banner. He will make his fortune in grocery stores. His network was a compilation of 400 stores from all over the world, it allowed millions of Russians to shop in clean, spacious premises, without worrying about quality, and at very affordable prices.

“I think I will become the most unhappy person if we ever sell Lenta” (O. Zherebtsov)

This is exactly what he said in 2005. But already in 2009 he sells his share without discussion or comment, and invests the proceeds in a new market for himself, “complex and small” - pharmaceuticals.

And by 2009, the company already had more than 30 stores in 17 Russian cities and opened new ones every year, as well as distribution centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and then in Novosibirsk, Tolyatti and Rostov-on-Don.

In 2013, Lenta launched a chain of supermarkets as a pilot project.

“We already knew how to work very well with hypermarkets, our key area. Three years after the pilot launch, the new format has proven its effectiveness. Today this is no longer a pilot project, supermarkets are an important segment for Lenta, which demonstrates high sales density and very good comparable revenue growth" (Jan Dunning, Lenta CEO).

Modernity

Today Lenta is a significant player in Russian food retail. This:

• 191 hypermarket chains in 83 cities of the constituent entities of the Federation with an average retail area of ​​about 6 thousand square meters. m. Their different formats are used: “standard” (about 7,300 sq. m. of retail space and almost 26 thousand warehouse accounting units), “compact” (4,920 sq. m. and 17-19 thousand units), “ super-compact" (up to 3,000 sq. m. and 12 thousand units);
• 49 supermarkets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad, Moscow and Kaluga regions on 900 sq. m trade. pl. and 6.2 thousand warehouse accounting units;
• 7 own distribution centers;
• 2 well-known product brands: “Lenta” and “365 days”;
• more than 11.8 million active loyalty card holders.

The company’s new logo, from which the stripe as a symbol of the ribbon and the slogan “Savings in every purchase” have disappeared. Always" is still recognizable by customers.

Financial position

Increasing the retailer's own funds at the expense of the profit received helps reduce the company's financial dependence.

Source: official website of the company

Rice. 1. Retail "Lenta".
Source: website new-retail.ru

Among the largest

The company demonstrates steady revenue growth and rose from 47th place in the Forbes 2013 ranking to 21st.

Source: Forbes

Today the chain ranks among the top five largest grocery retailers.

Rice. 2. Ten largest retailers operating in Russia.
Source: website vedomosti.ru

At the same time, Lenta declares its intention by the end of 2020 to take the position of player No. 3 in the market among all food retailers, not only Russian ones. To do this, it will have to surpass the French Auchan in terms of revenue.

Shares and shareholders

Since 2014, securities have been listed on the London Stock Exchange. Shares of only real existing shareholders of the retailer are sold on stock exchanges, including at that time:

• TPG Group, which has 49.8%;
• EBRD - 21.5%;
• VTB Capital - 11.7%.

Subsequently, the company received a listing in Moscow. Today, the shareholders' shares have changed: TPG has 34%, EBRD has 7.37, and management and the board of directors have 1.09%.

Lenta shares are not as liquid as securities and. In addition, Lenta does not pay dividends on publicly traded securities. This explains the 4% discount with which Lenta shares are trading compared to Magnit and X5.

At the same time, Lenta’s securities corrected by more than 20% relative to the highs of 2016, which is significantly more than even the shares of Magnit, which greatly disappointed investors with its financial results over the past year. Thanks to this, Lenta shares have now become the most interesting asset in Russian retail available for purchase on the Moscow Exchange.

Fig.3. MOEX common shares.
Source: website finanz.ru

Rice. 4. Lenta Ltd (LNTAq) securities.
Source: website ru.investing.com

Lately, Lenta has been demonstrating active expansion, and, according to Bogdan Zvarich, senior analyst at Freedom Finance Investment Company, its shares should be paid attention to.

By the end of 2016, the company reached a capitalization level of $3,990 million and was ranked 32nd in the RiaRating Agency list, remaining the third food retailer in terms of capitalization after the richest, which are Magnit and X5 Retail Group.

The company's intentions are to become the second most valuable retailer in the country.

According to the results of the RBC study, Lenta was among the 50 largest Russian taxpayers. For 2016, the tax burden on the company was 1.2%; 3.7 billion rubles in taxes were paid to the budget.

Own brands

By developing their own private labels (private brands), many food retailers are solving the problem of the dull monotony of domestic trade, when large and small stores sell the same goods and often at the same prices. The production of private label goods allows you to distance yourself from competitors, offering your customers a unique product that others do not have.

Lenta is reconsidering its approach to goods of its own brands and promises that by the end of 2017 there will be up to 2,600-2,800 types of such goods in the chain’s hypermarkets, which is one and a half times higher than last year’s level.

Today, buyers are well aware of two Lentov brands:

Operating profit

▲ RUB 22.33 billion (2015, IFRS)

Net profit

▲ RUB 10.28 billion (2015, IFRS)

Assets

▲ RUB 178.39 billion (2015, IFRS)

Number of employees

35.1 thousand (2013)

Parent company Website K:Companies founded in 1993

Story

The Lenta company was founded by Russian entrepreneur Oleg Zherebtsov on October 25, 1993 in St. Petersburg. The first Lenta store in the Cash & Carry format opened in 1993 in St. Petersburg on Zamshina Street; in 1996-1997, two more small stores were opened in St. Petersburg.

In 2009-2015, more than thirty hypermarkets were opened: five in Novokuznetsk, three more in Novosibirsk, three in Omsk, two each in Barnaul, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk and Yaroslavl, three in Ivanovo, and in other cities - one by one. Lenta also appeared in leased space in existing shopping centers. A second distribution center was built in Novosibirsk.

Subsequently, management of the company was carried out collectively. At the beginning of 2011, August Meyer's Svoboda fund tried to buy out the share of its “rival”, the Luna fund. As a result, in August 2011, it became known that an agreement had been reached that both funds would part with their shares, selling them to the American fund Texas Pacific Group, VTB Capital and the EBRD (as a result, TPG and VTB Capital will jointly own 65% "Lenta", and the EBRD - 20%). The total transaction amount is expected to be $1.1 billion.

IPO

At the end of February 2014, the company held an IPO. The volume of Lenta's placement amounted to $952 million excluding the organizers' option and $1.095 billion with its full exercise. The value of Lenta's business was estimated at $5.4 billion, market capitalization at $4.3 billion. Lenta was valued at a discount of only 11% to the leader of Russian retail - Krasnodar Magnit and a premium to the securities of OK "at 13%.

On 5 March 2014, Lenta began trading its global depositary receipts (GDRs) through the international order book of the London Stock Exchange (LSE). On March 6, 2014, trading in Lenta securities began on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX).

Owners and management

The parent company of the network, Lenta LLC, is 100% owned by Lenta Ltd., registered in the British Virgin Islands. As of April 2014, the network's share distribution is as follows:

• TPG Capital - 35.55%,
• EBRD - 15.32%,
• Directors and management - 1.14%,
• Shares in free float - 47.99%.

The company's CEO is Jan Dunning, and the chairman of the board of directors is John Oliver. Also on the board of directors are: Ian Dunning, Steve Johnson, Michael Lynch Bell, Jaho Lemmens, Lindsay Forbes, Anton Artemyev, Dmitry Shvets, Stephen Peel, Martin Elling.

In April 2015, Lenta shareholders proportionally reduced their stakes in the retailer. TPG Group owns 35.55% of shares, EBRD owns 15.3%, VTB Capital - 5.8%, minority shareholders 7.6%, company management owns 1.1%, 34.6% of Lenta shares are in free float.

Almost immediately after the SPO, the company announced the payment of dividends to its shareholders represented by Lenta Ltd in the amount of 6 billion rubles. Evidence suggests that shareholders are gradually getting rid of Lenta. The reasons for the Western owners of the company are rather political, and there is also a threat of nationalization.

The retailer's business also raises questions. It is known that the company's debt burden exceeds the industry average. Lenta's large loans in 2014 totaled 26.1 billion rubles, and in March 2015 the company turned to VTB Bank for a loan of 15 billion rubles, which is the largest borrowing in the company's history.

Lenta forecasts slower revenue growth in 2015 compared to last year. The company plans to open 20-25 hypermarkets and 10-15 supermarkets, which will cost Lenta 25 billion rubles.

Activity

As of the end of October 2016, the retail network includes 125 hypermarkets and 27 supermarkets in 62 cities of Russia. Twenty-two hypermarkets of the chain are located in St. Petersburg; seven - in Novosibirsk, six - in Omsk; five in Novokuznetsk; four - in Volgograd, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk; three each in Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Ivanovo; two each in Syktyvkar, Veliky Novgorod, Krasnodar, Voronezh, Ulyanovsk, Novorossiysk, Yaroslavl, Ryazan, Togliatti, Taganrog, Saratov, Cherepovets, Belgorod, Penza and Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Tagil; one shopping complex was located in a number of large Russian cities, including Nizhnekamsk, Novocherkassk, Perm, Tomsk, Tula, Kaluga, Ufa, Murmansk, Irkutsk and others.

In 2013, the company began opening stores of a new format - supermarkets. 22 supermarkets have been opened in Moscow, the Moscow region, as well as a supermarket in Maloyaroslavets. In the same year, the first hypermarket was opened in the Moscow region - in Balashikha.

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Notes

1. (February 15, 2016). Retrieved August 18, 2016.
2. (Russian) . lenta.com. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
3. New shareholder of Lenta. Vedomosti, No. 89 (1863), May 18, 2007
4. (Russian) . retail-tech.ru (March 1, 2009). Retrieved November 18, 2010.
5. (Russian) . lenta.com. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
6. Ekaterina Gerashchenko.. Gazeta.ru (???). Retrieved August 10, 2011. .
7. (Russian) . lenta.ru (September 14, 2010). Retrieved September 30, 2013.
8. . vedomosti.ru.
9. . rbc.ru.
10. . rbc.ru.
11. . lentainvestor.com.
12. . lentainvestor.com.
13. .
14. .
15. .
16. (Russian) . lenta.com. Retrieved September 30, 2013.

Links

An excerpt characterizing Lenta (a chain of stores)

Many historians say that the Battle of Borodino was not won by the French because Napoleon had a runny nose, that if he had not had a runny nose, his orders before and during the battle would have been even more ingenious, and Russia would have perished, et la face du monde eut ete changee. [and the face of the world would change.] For historians who recognize that Russia was formed by the will of one man - Peter the Great, and France from a republic developed into an empire, and French troops went to Russia by the will of one man - Napoleon, the reasoning is that Russia remained powerful because Napoleon had a big cold on the 26th, such reasoning is inevitably consistent for such historians.
If it depended on the will of Napoleon to give or not to give the Battle of Borodino and it depended on his will to make this or that order, then it is obvious that a runny nose, which had an impact on the manifestation of his will, could be the reason for the salvation of Russia and that therefore the valet who forgot to give Napoleon On the 24th, waterproof boots were the savior of Russia. On this path of thought, this conclusion is undoubted - as undoubted as the conclusion that Voltaire made jokingly (without knowing what) when he said that the Night of St. Bartholomew occurred from an upset stomach of Charles IX. But for people who do not allow that Russia was formed by the will of one person - Peter I, and that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia began by the will of one person - Napoleon, this reasoning not only seems incorrect, unreasonable, but also contrary to the whole essence human. To the question of what constitutes the cause of historical events, another answer seems to be that the course of world events is predetermined from above, depends on the coincidence of all the arbitrariness of the people participating in these events, and that the influence of Napoleons on the course of these events is only external and fictitious.
Strange as it may seem at first glance, the assumption that the Night of St. Bartholomew, the order for which was given by Charles IX, did not occur at his will, but that it only seemed to him that he ordered it to be done, and that the Borodino massacre of eighty thousand people did not occur at the will of Napoleon (despite the fact that he gave orders about the beginning and course of the battle), and that it seemed to him only that he ordered it - no matter how strange this assumption seems, but human dignity tells me that each of us, if not more, then no less a person than the great Napoleon orders that this solution to the issue be allowed, and historical research abundantly confirms this assumption.
In the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon did not shoot at anyone and did not kill anyone. The soldiers did all this. Therefore, it was not he who killed people.
The soldiers of the French army went to kill Russian soldiers in the Battle of Borodino not as a result of Napoleon’s orders, but of their own free will. The entire army: the French, Italians, Germans, Poles - hungry, ragged and exhausted from the campaign - in view of the army blocking Moscow from them, they felt that le vin est tire et qu"il faut le boire. [the wine is uncorked and it is necessary to drink it .] If Napoleon had now forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and gone to fight the Russians, because they needed it.
When they listened to the order of Napoleon, who presented them with the words of posterity for their injuries and death as a consolation that they too had been in the battle of Moscow, they shouted “Vive l" Empereur!” just as they shouted “Vive l"Empereur!” at the sight of an image of a boy piercing the globe with a bilboke stick; just as they would shout “Vive l"Empereur!” at any nonsense that would be told to them. They had no choice but to shout “Vive l" Empereur!” and go fight to find food and rest for the victors in Moscow. Therefore, it was not as a result of Napoleon’s orders that they killed their own kind.
And it was not Napoleon who controlled the course of the battle, because nothing was carried out from his disposition and during the battle he did not know about what was happening in front of him. Therefore, the way in which these people killed each other did not happen at the will of Napoleon, but happened independently of him, at the will of hundreds of thousands of people who participated in the common cause. It only seemed to Napoleon that the whole thing was happening according to his will. And therefore the question of whether or not Napoleon had a runny nose is of no greater interest to history than the question of the runny nose of the last Furshtat soldier.
Moreover, on August 26, Napoleon’s runny nose did not matter, since the testimony of writers that, due to Napoleon’s runny nose, his disposition and orders during the battle were not as good as before are completely unfair.
The disposition written out here was not at all worse, and even better, than all previous dispositions by which battles were won. The imaginary orders during the battle were also no worse than before, but exactly the same as always. But these dispositions and orders seem only worse than the previous ones because the Battle of Borodino was the first that Napoleon did not win. All the most beautiful and thoughtful dispositions and orders seem very bad, and every military scientist criticizes them with a significant air when the battle is not won, and the very bad dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people prove the merits of bad orders in entire volumes, when the battle is won against them.
The disposition compiled by Weyrother at the Battle of Austerlitz was an example of perfection in works of this kind, but it was still condemned, condemned for its perfection, for too much detail.
Napoleon in the Battle of Borodino performed his job as a representative of power just as well, and even better, than in other battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he leaned toward more prudent opinions; he did not confuse, did not contradict himself, did not get scared and did not run away from the battlefield, but with his great tact and war experience, he calmly and with dignity fulfilled his role as an apparent commander.

Returning from a second anxious trip along the line, Napoleon said:
– The chess has been set, the game will start tomorrow.
Ordering some punch to be served and calling Bosset, he began a conversation with him about Paris, about some changes that he intended to make in the maison de l'imperatrice [in the court staff of the Empress], surprising the prefect with his memorability for all the small details of court relations.
He was interested in trifles, joked about Bosse's love of travel and chatted casually in the way a famous, confident and knowledgeable operator does, while he rolls up his sleeves and puts on an apron and the patient is tied to a bed: “The matter is all in my hands.” and in my head, clearly and definitely. When it’s time to get down to business, I’ll do it like no one else, and now I can joke, and the more I joke and am calm, the more you should be confident, calm and surprised at my genius.”
Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before the serious business that, as it seemed to him, lay ahead of him the next day.
He was so interested in this task ahead of him that he could not sleep and, despite the runny nose that had worsened from the evening dampness, at three o'clock in the morning, blowing his nose loudly, he went out into the large compartment of the tent. He asked if the Russians had left? He was told that the enemy fires were still in the same places. He nodded his head approvingly.
The adjutant on duty entered the tent.
“Eh bien, Rapp, croyez vous, que nous ferons do bonnes affaires aujourd"hui? [Well, Rapp, what do you think: will our affairs be good today?] - he turned to him.
“Sans aucun doute, sire, [Without any doubt, sir,” answered Rapp.
Napoleon looked at him.
“Vous rappelez vous, Sire, ce que vous m"avez fait l"honneur de dire a Smolensk,” said Rapp, “le vin est tire, il faut le boire.” [Do you remember, sir, those words that you deigned to say to me in Smolensk, the wine is uncorked, I must drink it.]
Napoleon frowned and sat silently for a long time, his head resting on his hand.
“Cette pauvre armee,” he said suddenly, “elle a bien diminue depuis Smolensk.” La fortune est une franche courtisane, Rapp; je le disais toujours, et je commence a l "eprouver. Mais la garde, Rapp, la garde est intacte? [Poor army! It has greatly diminished since Smolensk. Fortune is a real harlot, Rapp. I have always said this and am beginning to experience it. But the guard, Rapp, are the guards intact?] – he said questioningly.
“Oui, Sire, [Yes, sir.],” answered Rapp.
Napoleon took the lozenge, put it in his mouth and looked at his watch. He didn’t want to sleep; morning was still far away; and in order to kill time, no orders could be made anymore, because everything had been done and was now being carried out.
– A t on distribue les biscuits et le riz aux regiments de la garde? [Did they distribute crackers and rice to the guards?] - Napoleon asked sternly.
– Oui, Sire. [Yes, sir.]
– Mais le riz? [But rice?]
Rapp replied that he had conveyed the sovereign’s orders about rice, but Napoleon shook his head with displeasure, as if he did not believe that his order would be carried out. The servant came in with punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought to Rapp and silently took sips from his own.
“I have neither taste nor smell,” he said, sniffing the glass. “I’m tired of this runny nose.” They talk about medicine. What kind of medicine is there when they cannot cure a runny nose? Corvisar gave me these lozenges, but they don't help. What can they treat? It cannot be treated. Notre corps est une machine a vivre. Il est organise pour cela, c"est sa nature; laissez y la vie a son aise, qu"elle s"y defende elle meme: elle fera plus que si vous la paralysiez en l"encombrant de remedes. Notre corps est comme une montre parfaite qui doit aller un certain temps; l"horloger n"a pas la faculte de l"ouvrir, il ne peut la manier qu"a tatons et les yeux bandes. Notre corps est une machine a vivre, voila tout. [Our body is a machine for life. This is what it is designed for. Leave the life in him alone, let her defend herself, she will do more on her own than when you interfere with her with medications. Our body is like a clock that must run for a certain time; The watchmaker cannot open them and can only operate them by touch and blindfolded. Our body is a machine for life. That's all.] - And as if having embarked on the path of definitions, definitions that Napoleon loved, he suddenly made a new definition. – Do you know, Rapp, what the art of war is? - he asked. – The art of being stronger than the enemy at a certain moment. Voila tout. [That's all.]

Company creation: The first Lenta store was opened on October 25, 1993. A warehouse store for wholesale buyers quickly became popular among the target audience. After 4 years, 2 more stores open in St. Petersburg, much closer to the center and their customers.

After another 2 years, the stores closed, and the Lenta shopping center, whose area was 2,700 square meters, opened its doors to customers.

Scope of activity: retail and small wholesale trade.

Full title: limited liability company "Lenta".

Now Lenta is a large retail chain with supermarkets in many Russian cities. 14 out of 39 shopping centers are located in the Northern capital. The total staff of the company for 2010 is 12,000 people. Trade turnover for 2009 was $1.8 billion. The headquarters is located in St. Petersburg.

41% of the company's shares were acquired by investor August Meyer, 30.8% were owned by VTB Capital, and another 11% belonged to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The remaining 17% is shared by minority shareholders.

"Ribbon" in faces

The general director at the beginning of 2011 is Sergei Yushchenko.

Contact Information