Amstor Retail Team manages commercial properties in central and eastern Ukraine.[1] Smart-Holding owned 70% of the company. In 2019, the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast declared Amstor LLC bankrupt.[2]
In December 2020, Madera Development bought shopping centers, land, and equipment from Amstor. This was through an auction in the Prozorro sales system.[2]
On 27 June 2022, a Russian X-22 missile hit Amstor in Kremenchuk.[4] The blast damaged the building. By 30 June 2022, at least 21 people were dead and 59 injured.
Among the injured, 25 were hospitalized. This tragic event shocked the community.
History
Amstor was started by Ukrainian businessman Volodymyr Vahorovskyi. The first store opened in Donetsk on 28 August 2003. By 2008, 19 more Amstor stores had opened in eastern Ukraine. There were also 22 shopping centers under construction.
In 2009, about ₴280 million (around US$30 million) was spent on the company's growth. [citation needed]
On 20 December 2012, Amstor reached Kyiv. On 25 October 2013, the first Amstor store opened in Dnipro. By 2014, the company had eight supermarkets in Donetsk, Makiivka, Sviatohirsk, and Yasynuvata. [citation needed]
But, the war in Donbas in 2014 stopped further growth. A fight between the main shareholder, Smart-Holding, and Volodymyr Vahorovskyi started in December 2014. In 2015, Smart-Holding gave over ₴150 million to keep 20 stores running in Ukraine.
In July 2015, Smart-Holding and Fozzy Group agreed to work together to fix Amstor. Some Amstor stores now help small and medium-sized businesses.
On 27 June 2022, an Amstor store was hit by a Russian missile. This happened during the Kremenchuk missile strike.[1]
Corporate conflict
Background
During the economic recession of 2008 Amstor was closed due to insolvency. Business partners Shifrin and Vahorovskyi offered Vadym Novynskyi 70% of Amstor's stock in exchange for working capital and restructuring the company's excessive credit portfolio. Novynskyi's company Smart-Holding provided a $3 million stabilization loan. In return, they each retained 15% of the company's stock. In 2009–2011, Novynskyi gave about $30.5 million to Amstor, and Smart-Holding concluded suretyship agreements to $50 million under the company's loans with the banks.[2] In 2012, Amstor's first supermarket in Kyiv was opened.[3] Later, two more Amstors were opened there.
Conflict
In March 2014, Volodymyr Vahorovskyi, without the consent of Smart-Holding, founded Amstor Trade LLC. The name of the new company was almost identical to that founded with Smart-Holding's half a year prior. The only difference was the absence of a hyphen in the name. To fill up the capital of Amstor Trade, Vahorovskyi made several fiscal transactions. One of them, for instance, was the purchase of 'worthless' securities for ₴15 million from Lancelot by Amstor Trade House, funnelling the money to Amstor Trade LLC as a loan.[4]
Later on, the Vahorovskyis brothers acted to make a deal to sell the trademarks to the companies that were controlled by them. The equipment of Amstor supermarkets was 'sold' and 're-registered' to these companies. Similar schemes were used when withdrawing vehicles and special machinery that belonged to the retail chain.[5] In November 2014, Smart-Holding noticed photos of receipts from Amstor outlets located in the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone, from which the "Amstor Trade House" name disappeared, and the VAT equalled to 0%. Smart-Holding did not give its consent though.
It was revealed that money from Amstor's accounts was transferred to some fake companies. From the publication of receipts in social media from the supermarkets in December 2014, Volodymyr Vahorovskyi was discovered to have used the money to buy an apartment in Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv, an expensive car, etc.[6] The proceeds from these 18 outlets were not debited and were appropriated by the ex-managers.[7]
Aftermath
Smart-Holding removed the Vahorovskyis from the management and assigned new managers to all the branches of the Amstor chain. Armed people acting under command of the Vahorovskyis blocked access to the stores. All that led to suspension in the supermarkets' operations—neither representatives of Smart-Holding nor the employees were allowed in.[8] The representatives of Smart-Holding received access to the stores only on 9 January 2015. In a span of ten days, servers were removed, labour books of employees disappeared, and the IT infrastructure of Amstor, contacts of suppliers and accounting papers were destroyed.[9]
Amstor LLC was declared bankrupt by the decision of the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast on 23 July 2019.[10] In December 2020, Madera Development, whose beneficiary is Ihor Mazepa, acquired several shopping centers, land and commercial equipment from Amstor at an auction in the Prozorro system.[10]
Outlets in the ATO zone
Eighteen stores of the Amstor Retail Group are situated in the ATO zone. These stores were initially operated under the supervision of Vahorovskyi, who had negotiated with the leaders of the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk. Subsequently, Vahorovskyi lost control of the Amstor stores in the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic due to actions by local militants.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
