Page 9 - bne_May magazine 2023_20230503 BRICS

bne May 2023 Companies & Markets I 9
Only a few days after Zhumangarin returned from Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Almas Aidarov complained
that Wildberries had laid out what he considered to be unreasonable conditions for coming to Kazakhstan and investing in the construction of warehouses.
“During our very first negotiations, Wildberries demanded exemption from taxes for a period of 30 years, as well as assistance in constructing warehouses,” Aidarov said. “Naturally, we have not agreed to such conditions.”
It is not known, meanwhile, what kinds of terms Dosayev, the Almaty mayor, discussed with the company.
Ozon has had a more fruitful time of things.
The company announced in March that it had completed construction of a 38,000-square-metre fulfilment centre in Astana. Facilities of this kind, modelled after the fashion of US e-commerce titan Amazon, are used to both store goods and handle their delivery to customers.
Ozon says this hub will be able to store nine million items, anything from food and electronic goods to building materials, and process 260,000 orders daily. Delivery times to buyers in Russia are being slashed as a result, Ozon said. The facility is due to start work this month.
Ukraine seizes assets of billionaire Novynskyi's Smart Holding
Ben Aris in Berlin
The authorities have seized the assets of leading Ukrainian conglomerate Smart Holding, changed the name of the beneficial owner of shares in the registrar and taken control of its gas fields that supply gas directly to the embattled city of Kharkiv amongst other customers
in what management told bne IntelliNews is probably
a corporate raid.
The company was raided by law enforcement officers on April 10, two hours after it refused a buyout offer for “next to nothing”, Smart Holdings CEO Yulia Kiryanova told bne IntelliNews in an exclusive interview.
Ukraine’s security services have said they seized UAH3.5bn ($96mn) of assets, including deeds to 40 companies and three gas wells. “The property of pro-Russian oligarch Vadym Novynskyi, who is involved in aiding the aggressor country, was seized,” the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement.
Smart Holding is the holding of top-ten Ukrainian billionaire businessman Vadym Novynskyi, who is worth $1.4bn, has been accused of “aiding” Russia and was sanctioned by the government last year. The SBU did not specify how Novynskyi has been aiding Russia, nor elaborate on the claim to the company’s management.
“We received a call from an interested party who told me 'we need to do a deal on sale of gas business quickly,' and said our offices were about to be raided. Two hours later the police officers arrived and searched out offices,” Kiryanova said.
Novynskyi transferred control in all his companies to trustees last year to allow him to devote himself full time to
the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), where he was made
a deacon in 2020, and is reported to have left the country. Kiryanova believes the raid and criminal charges levelled against Novynskyi are due to his association with the church.
Amongst Novynskyi’s holding is a minority stake in Metinvest, owner of the Azovstal metallurgical works
in Mariupol that was worth billions of dollars but was completely destroyed during a months-long Russian siege of the city last year.
Smart Holding has seen almost all of its Ukrainian businesses either damaged, destroyed or brought to a standstill by the war. Management told bne IntelliNews that many of the domestic businesses are now loss-making, yet it continues
to keep its staff on the payroll so they have some income to survive while the war rages.
Ukraine's security services have seized the assets of top oligarch Vadym Novynskyi (left) for "aiding the aggressor" in what management claim is a corporate raid. / bne IntelliNews
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