“As a result of hostile takeover attempts we are forced to stop work Boutique.ru. We plan to resume work after resolving the situation,” — this ad appeared on the main page of the online store of clothing and footwear Boutique.ru. At the moment on the website there is not even a product catalog.
The company is no longer able “to provide a level of service and range”, and it “is not in crisis and not fictional raiders “financial problems” found on the website of the store the words of founder and CEO Boutique.ru Denis Belov. “We are all hostages of the situation that is happening in the country,” he said. No details of the incident not given in the message. Boutique.ru “always been profitable and successful company with an impeccable credit history”, — stated in the published statement of the founder.
Boutique.ru — one of the largest online retailers. In 1997, businessman Denis Belov created in St. Petersburg a group of Machiavelli Luxury Group (MLG), which subsequently went offline boutiques as the network and established in 2006 online sales platform Boutique.ru. Edition Dp.ru calls MLG “a leading retailer of clothes, shoes and luxury accessories in the North-West region of Russia”.
In 2013 the top 30 largest Russian Internet companies, published annually by Forbes magazine, Boutique.ru he held 22nd place with annual revenue of about $53 million (about 70% of the total turnover of MLG, according to Forbes). Then traffic to the site was about 60 tons per day, the range consisted of over 100 thousand products from over 700 brands, wrote Forbes. Boutique.ru entered the payback within two months after the launch, pointed the edition. In the ranking of the largest Internet companies by Forbes in 2014 Boutique.ru already got 30 leaders then closed the online-supermarket of software Softkey with annual revenue of $61 million.
To communicate with management Boutique.ru so far failed. Domain of the official website of MLG — machiavelli.ru — offered for sale. Listed on the site group phone number meet the staff Società Italia: as the information on the company’s website, this “exclusive distributor of world-renowned luxury brands”, based in 1993 and growing “exclusively on the market of the former Soviet Union”.
LLC “Machiavelli Luxury Group”, according to base “SPARK-Interfax” belongs to Denis Sokolov. Financial indicators “Machiavelli Luxury group” in the “SPARK-Interfax” no. With a group of five affiliated companies — “Instil”, “Luxor”, “Palace trading”, trading house “the Grange” and “Grundel”, all these companies registered in St. Petersburg and engaged in retail trade of clothes, based on the information in the database. First, four firms belong to Denis Sokolov, “Grundel” — Anastasia Sokolova, the head of all companies one — Elena Pimbura. Total revenue “Install”, “Palace trading”, trading house “the Grange” and “Grundel” for the year 2013 amounted to 205 million rubles.
