Sweden's Eastnine completes sale of stake in Melon Fashion Group

MOSCOW. Aug 11 (Interfax) - Eastnine AB has completed the sale of its stake in Russian fashion retailer Melon Fashion Group (MFG), which operates the Zarina, befree, Love Republic and Sela chains, to Russian firm Gem Invest LLC for about 15.6 billion rubles, the Swedish company reported.

The deal was announced on August 7, when Eastnine said that it, together with other European shareholders in MFG entered into an agreement under which its entire investment in the retailer would ultimately be sold to Gem Invest LLC, a division of former Gazprom executive Anatoly Paliy's Gem Capital.

MFG said in its report for 2022 that it was 36% owned by Eastnine AB, 34% by I.G.M. Manufactrust Ltd, the Cyprus-based company of MFG cofounder David Kellerman, 11% by MFG Intressenter AB and 7% by MFG CEO Mikhail Urzhumtsev.

The Russian Federal Anti-monopoly Service said on Telegram on Thursday morning that it had cleared the company Radio Reklama NN to acquire the Zarina, befree, Love Republic and Sela retail networks.

The regulator approved a request for the acquisition of up to 75% of the shares of JSC MFG Invest, as well as the right to control the activity of JSC Melon Fashion Group JSC and its subsidiary LLC Taksi.Stil. "The deal will not affect of competition in the clothing, footwear and accessories retail markets," the FAS said.

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, LLC Radio Reklama NN is 99.9% owned by LLC Infrastructure Holding-1, which is owned by Ivan Tavrin's LLC Kismet Capital Group.

JSC MFG Invest was registered in July 2023. Its ultimate owners have not been disclosed.

JSC MFG increased its net profit by 130% to 7.3 billion rubles in 2022 on revenue up 23.5% to 46.1 billion rubles, data from the SPARK-Interfax system showed.