Pinchuk to help Mosmart to enter Ukrainian market

Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk found a partner to develop long-term business. Investment fund EastOne, owned by him, creates a joint venture with Russian grocery chain Mosmart, reported the co-owner of Mosmart Mikhail Bezelyansky. Experts believe that the cooperation will be mutually beneficial as EastOne possesses all the land lots necessary for the chain development while Mosmart has experience which it hasn't applied beyond Russia yet.

The joint venture will be established with a developer subsidiary of the largest Ukrainian asset management company EastOne owned by Viktor Pinchuk. According to him, the partners have already registered Platform 1, 51% of which will belong to Mosmart and 49% - to EastOne.

The manager of the Russian chain, who was invited to work for the joint venture, reported that the companies have agreed on joint business since end-year of 2007. According to him, Mosmart may become a co-investor of supermarkets chain which is developed by a division of EastOne and separate hypermarkets with trade gallery of 1-1.5 thousand square meters, which will be occupied by Mosmart shops.

Mosmart announced its entry into Ukraine a year ago. At that time Bezelyansky said that a separate trade mark will be created for development in Ukraine. However, a year later Mosmart wasn't able to open any shops because of high cost of Ukrainian chains and lack of candidates to buy them. As experts state, it is very difficult to do business in Ukraine without administrative resources.

Mosmart JSC is founded in 2002 and unites 65 shops in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Tyumen, Krasnodar and other cities (TM Mosmart, Mosmart-express, Mosmart-maxi and Mosmartik). The company is owned by its founders Mikhail Bezelyansky and Andrey Shelukhin. The revenues in 2007 constituted $748 million.

EastOne was established in September, 2007, for asset management of Viktor Pinchuk at the total amount exceeding $10 billion. EastOne's portfolio contains about 20 business lines. Its major assets are: pipe-wheel company Interpipe, enterprises Dneprospetsstal and Nikopolsky Zavod Ferrosplavov (Nikopolsky Ferroalloy Plant), bank Credit-Dnepr, TV channels ICTV, STB, New Channel and М1, as well as the block -package of airline company Aerosvit.