Supporting Magnit in its successful acquisition of a controlling stake in Azbuka Vkusa
The Stonebridge Legal team advised Magnit (Tander JSC), one of the leading retailers in Russia, in connection with the acquisition of a controlling stake in the authorised capital of Gorodskoy Supermarket LLC, which operates Azbuka Vkusa stores in the premium retail segment.
According to the company’s press release, closing will take place after approval by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia and fulfilment of a number of other conditions agreed by the parties.
Dmitry Surikov, partner and head of Stonebridge Legal’s project team, said:
“We are pleased to be a part of this landmark transaction for the Russian market. I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Stonebridge Legal team for the professionalism and competence shown during the implementation of the project. I would like to emphasise the highly-effective cooperation with Magnit’s legal team, which allowed us to successfully complete the deal signing stage”.
The deal was supported by a large team of Stonebridge Legal experts, to whom we express our gratitude: partner Dmitry Surikov; counsels Anna Venediktova, Alexander Viktorov, Denis Bushnev, Vladimir Kostsov; senior associate Olga Kovtunova; and associates Anatoly Borisov, Vladislav Vasiliev, Konstantin Vedenin, Ilya Kraev, Alexander Kurbankov, Fedor Lukyanov, Stepan Morozov, Shah-Said Rajabov and Daria Shiryaeva.
Magnit is the largest retailer in Russia by number of stores and the second largest by revenue.
Azbuka Vkusa operates 171 stores in several formats: Azbuka Vkusa supermarkets, Azbuka Daily minimarkets and AV Market hypermarkets. The total selling space of the acquired assets amounts to 100.4 thousand square metres, of which about 77.9 thousand square metres are supermarkets and 11.9 thousand square metres are minimarkets. Five culinary, bakery and confectionery production facilities were also included in the deal. As part of the deal, Magnit also acquired three distribution centres and warehouse delivery infrastructure with a total area of 47 thousand square metres in Moscow and St Petersburg.
More information about the project can be found in the company’s press release.