The court banned transactions with DPD shares in Russia due to the bankruptcy of the PickPoint network

According to court documents, the foreign entity Armadillo Holding turned out to own 48.94% of Cyprus PickPoint and at the same time is the sole shareholder of DPD Rus through the limited company DS Russia GP GmbH.

The ban was introduced as an interim measure in the bankruptcy case of the PickPoint parcel terminal network. The network’s debt was estimated at 2.6 billion rubles, 1 billion of which was debt to Sberbank.

Armadillo Holding GmbH, registered in Germany, “as the beneficial owner of the limited company DS Russia GP” is prohibited from transactions involving the alienation, encumbrance or alienation in any other form of the shares of DPD Rus JSC belonging to it, follows from the materials of the court. The court also prohibited JSC Reestr from making records on the accounting or transfer of rights to the shares of JSC DPD Rus owned by Armadillo Holding GmbH or DS Russia GP GmbH, as well as from carrying out other actions.

In 2023, the Kommersant publication reported that the French shareholder decided to sell the DPD network and was negotiating with local logistics operators, including Business Lines and PEC. No information was disclosed about the results of the negotiations.

The precautionary measures will remain in force until the court decides to hold vicariously liable the controlling persons of the Automated Dispensing Point Network, including Armadillo. The next meeting at the request of the bankruptcy administrator is scheduled for April 2, 2025.

• The Russian structure of JSC DPD Rus is part of the network of the second largest parcel delivery service in Europe. In 2023, the company’s revenue in Russia amounted to 13.8 billion rubles and net profit reached 640.2 million rubles. According to RBC, the top three logistics operators transporting LTL at the end of 2023 included Business Lines Group of Companies, PEC and DPD.

Who controls PickPoint?

The people who control the PickPoint network were revealed for the first time in court documents. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the network is owned by the Cypriot PickPoint Delivery System Limited, whose final beneficiaries were not named.

As indicated in the court documents, in addition to PickPoint Delivery System Limited and Armadillo Holding, the company is controlled by two other Cypriot structures, BigMarket Holdings Limited and MVSM Financial Holdings LTD, about which no information is available; In addition, those exercising control include Sergey Lapin, Oleg and Vladimir Solodkin, as well as the former CEO of PickPoint, Nadezhda Romanova. As part of the bankruptcy, they participate in the case as third parties.

The court also accepted the bankruptcy trustee’s requests to invalidate the Russian PickPoint network’s transactions with Sberbank, Sovcombank, Elite Bank and DPD Rus. It is not reported what type of transactions we are talking about.

According to Kontur.Focus, Lapin, mentioned among the controlling persons, owns a stake of approximately 38% in the US goods delivery service GBS Broker LLC (revenue for 2023: billion rubles, net profit: 4 .7 million rubles). , 61% in SPSR Technology LLC (revenue: 32.2 million rubles). Nadezhda Romanova is mentioned as the founder of New Point Logistics LLC (audit and consulting for online stores, revenue for 2023: 12 million rubles).

Oleg Solodkin is listed in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as the owner of 41.5% of Masterpost LLC (activities in the field of transport, revenue in 2023: 463.1 million rubles). Lapin and Solodkin are also mentioned as co-owners of Our Solar World of St. Petersburg LLC, which is engaged in autism rehabilitation (revenue: 18.8 million rubles).

Vladimir Solodkin was a member of Lapin’s GBS Broker until 2023 and currently heads Tempoline Logistics LLC (fulfillment operator, revenue: 389.2 million rubles).

• At the end of 2023, the revenue of the PickPoint network in Russia amounted to 210 million rubles, the net loss reached 857 million rubles.
• In April 2023, when the Russian company PickPoint declared bankruptcy, the network was highly developed, there were about 6 thousand parcel terminals and 4.5 thousand collection points in large cities and towns, their value was 500 to 1 billion rubles, reported RB.RU Chief Strategy Officer of Finam Financial Group Yaroslav Kabakov. As part of the bankruptcy, lots with hundreds of PickPoint parcel terminals are being auctioned. In August, the DNS store chain purchased about 140 parcel terminals at auction for 7.1 million rubles. In October, new batches of devices did not find buyers.

lawyer’s opinion

Maria Spiridonova, a member of the Russian Bar Association, explained to RB.RU that if a debtor cannot pay all creditors, the people who control him take subsidiary responsibility. Controlling persons are natural and legal persons who influence the activities of the debtor. These include, but are not limited to, participants, founders or asset owners of a legal entity and other persons who may benefit from dishonest behavior. Therefore, relatives of the director, the chief accountant and other consultants can be held vicariously liable.

A person who controls the debtor who approved the transaction directly (for example, an actual participant in a corporation) or indirectly (for example, an actual participant in a corporation who influenced a nominal participant to approve the transaction) may be held liable. says the lawyer.

Persons cannot be classified as controllers of the debtor if such classification is associated solely with the direct ownership of less than ten percent of the authorized capital of a legal entity and the receipt of ordinary income associated with this ownership. The court will consider these persons liable if influence on the debtor is proven within three years before signs of bankruptcy appear, as well as until the debtor is declared bankrupt, Spiridonova concluded.