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58 I Eastern Europe bne February 2021
Fencing club memberships surge following success of Russia’s answer to the Queen’s Gambit hit mini-series
Ben Aris in Berlin
Following the phenomenal success of “The Queen’s Gambit,” Netflix’s fictional drama about a female chess prodigy, Russia has released its own version of the genre – except “On the edge” is about female fencing stars, not chess players.
The Queen’s Gambit has been one of the most popular shows on the online movie service in recent months and racked up 62mn views in its first 28 days after release on October 23, the company said as cited by the Wall Street Journal.
It has also led to one of the biggest surges in chessboard sales and online chess club memberships since chess’s heyday during the Cold War and the legendary clash between the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky and the US’ Bobby Fischer in
a game held in Reykjavik Iceland – the most watched chess game of all time.
“We’re setting a new record for most new members in a single day almost every day of November,” Nick Barton, director of business development at Chess.com, a site for chess education and online play, told the Wall Street Journal.
The Russian movie about a young woman that takes up fencing has pulled off the same trick.
Alexandra Pokrovskaya is the best sabre fencer in the world and is famous, rich and happy. To go down in history, she just needs to take the last step:
to win an Olympic gold. But her path is blocked by nineteen-year-old Kira Egorova, a girl from the provinces who arrived in Moscow and overnight rose to become the best fencer in the country.
Fêted on the piste and off, Kira’s goal is to take the place of Pokrovskaya and a desperate battle begins – not only in tournaments, but also in life – as the movie builds to the showdown on the piste between the two women.
Like The Queen’s Gambit, On the edge has sparked popular interest in fencing in Russia, and fencing instructors have piggy-backed on the film's popularity.
crash in March, falling by over 40%
in the worst of the panic selling, but since then Magnit’s shares have easily outperformed those of X5; they have returned 41.4% and 13.8% respectively since the start of year as of December 16. Magnit’s stock is back in fashion and analysts have been writing glowing research notes on the company.
This new enthusiasm is partly a result
of the strong results that Magnit has put in. The pick-up in sales and lower costs in the last two quarters is due to the new executive team finding its stride, according to VTB Capital (VTBC), which expects more good things to come.
This year, VTBC says it expects the store rollout to resume, with 7% year-on-year higher selling space and a 6% top-line compound average growth rate (CAGR) for the next five years.
The Ebitda margin of 7% is at a comfortable level and the gross margin cushion is sufficient to offset cost expansion, the bank said in a note.
"The story now switches to careful capex allocation and working capital optimisation, which in our model returns a blended free cash flow (FCF) yield of 6% in 2021-2025," VTBC wrote.
Dunning says that he is keen to restore investors’ confidence in the company’s stock and after income and EBITDA improved in the third quarter of 2020 he was happy to return cash to investors with a surprisingly generous dividend payment. Magnit offers a sector-leading dividend yield of 10%, with the higher-than- expected dividends for 9M20 and a total payment of RUB25bn ($330mn), making a 67% y/y increase at RUB245.3 per share.
“The EBITDA has been good and the like-for-like (LFL) sales robust. We spent less on capex than we anticipated and so as there was free cash flow
we decided we could return some money to the shareholders. It’s one of Magnit’s traditions that we will keep,” says Dunning. “But what we will really reward shareholders with is the results. We want to grow the value of the business.”
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