“In St. Petersburg, the assets of a once major player in the duty free market are divided” — Daria Yamovich for Delovoy Peterburg
A businesswoman from Belarus and a German giant of duty-free trade share in St. Petersburg what remains of a once major player in the Russian duty free market.
One of the world's largest duty free trade operators is the German Gebr. Heinemann SE & CO. KG filed for bankruptcy of Travel Retail St. Petersburg LLC. The reasons for the decline of Travel Retail St. Petersburg LLC, which began even before the pandemic, are vague. The company has closed stores in Volgograd and St. Petersburg. Novosibirsk duty free lasted longer than the others and fell already in 2020, after the introduction of restrictive measures. Soon the company received a lawsuit from Gebr. Heinemann for 10.5 million euros owed to him under loan agreements. Having lost the case in the first instance, the Russian company did not challenge the court's decision. At the end of August 2021, it announced its own liquidation.
The introduction of procedures for liquidation of the debtor before the filing of an application for its bankruptcy in the moment is the most efficient mechanism for assigning lender–applicant candidates bankruptcy Trustee, which in turn allows the applicant to obtain control of the company–debtor and to influence the course of bankruptcy proceedings "from the inside",
— says Daria Yamovich, a junior lawyer at Prime Advice.