The investment company Marathon Group, which is the largest shareholder in the Magnit chain, acquired a stake in the grocery delivery service Grow Food. Sources estimated the amount of the deal at 4 to 4.5 billion rubles.
According to Forbes sources, after the transaction, Marathon Group became the owner of a blocking stake in the business, but its stake is not controlling. The Marathon Group did not respond to the publication’s request.
The founder of the Grow Food service, Daniel Galper, stated that “he does not know what rumors this information is based on.”
“And in the current situation, it would be a mistake to insist on issues of shareholding structure,” Galper said.
Until July 2023, GF Trade (Grow Food legal entity) belonged to the Vinda structure, registered in Cyprus. Currently, the owner is MKOO “Vinda Limited” with registration in Kaliningrad. The beneficiaries of the company are not revealed.
Grow Food was founded in 2015 by St. Petersburg entrepreneurs: Daniel Galper and Pavel Paskar. The service specializes in the production and delivery of healthy meals.
The company attracted its first investments (about 300 million rubles) from the AddVenture venture fund in 2016. A year later, the same fund invested another 5 million dollars in the project.
In 2019, the service opened a food processing plant in St. Petersburg worth 200 million rubles. And in 2022, the company launched an independent brand “Priem” in the budget segment, with a subscription to monthly rations for 9,900 rubles. Late last year, the service expanded to nine new cities.
Marathon Group was founded in 2017 by former A1 president and son-in-law of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Alexander Vinokurov, and others at the company. The structure owns 26.66% of the Magnit network. Alexander Vinokurov was subject to personal sanctions by the European Union in early 2022.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
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