Beer in a pharmacy: who is “treated” by the head of the holding “Asna” Shishkin?

According to the correspondent The Moscow Postself-regulatory organization “Association of Independent Pharmacies” (Asna) headed by Alexander Shishkin tried to shield pharmacies from regular inspections, saying they were fined unreasonably. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office found no reason to cancel the punishments.

In the meantime, as it turned out, the twin brother of the SRO, Asna LLC, does not waste time in vain and continues to build a joint business with Gazprombank. True, it seems that they tried to hide information about this from prying eyes. Does Mr. Shishkin really have something to hide?

Confusion with Gazprombank

Let’s clarify right away so that there is no confusion: there are two organizations of the same name with different TINs – this is the self-regulatory public organization Association of Independent Pharmacies (Asna), established in 2014 by Alexander Shishkin, and quite a commercial enterprise Asna LLC, which Shishkin manages in the capacity of General Manager.

In the statutory activities of the latter, according to data from “Rusprofile”along with consulting on business and management issues, there are also wholesale trade in perfumes, motor vehicles and a number of other areas that are very far from pharmacy.

Four LLCs and businessman Alexander Kondratiev are listed as the founders of Asna LLC in Rusprofile. But information about the founders of SRO “Asna” has recently been hidden. On the other hand, information remained in the public domain that on January 3, 2022, when the majority of the population was still recovering after the New Year’s Eve, six founders abruptly left the founders of SRO Asna – mainly pharmacies. But did anyone stay there?

Six companies withdrew from the founders of SRO Asna. And who was left there? The information is now hidden. Photo: rusprofile.ru

If we turn to earlier information, it turns out that at the end of 2020 “Farmvestnik” wrote about the acquisition by Gazprombank of a minority stake in the capital of the commercial Asna LLC. Then it was reported that “investments will be directed to the development of the ASNA technology platform, strengthening the online segment and entering other segments of the retail market.”

Let us clarify that the entry of Gazprombank into the business of Asna was not presented in the media quite correctly. According to the data “Rusprofile”Management Company Gazprombank – Resource-saving Technologies LLC in September 2020 became one of the founders of one of the companies that themselves are the founders of Asna LLC. We are talking about Nigel Capital LLC.

Asna LLC has a very branched business. Photo: rusprofile.ru

At the same time, GPB-project LLC and Finproekt LLC, which have been them since at least 2016, left the founders of Nigel Capital LLC (this is noted in “Rusprofile”). The founder of Finproekt LLC, by the way, is directly Gazprombank.

Thus, it is easy to assume that Gazprombank became, one way or another, involved in the business of Asna LLC not at all in 2020, as Alexander Shishkin stated media, but four years earlier. However, Shishkin, in his interviews, carefully avoided this moment and said that all this time until 2020, negotiations were underway with Gazprombank.

And why were these “spy” tricks needed?

Pharmacy in a cafe or cafe in a pharmacy?

Interestingly, after the announcement of the deal between Asna LLC and Gazprombank, the company left Alexander Kondratiev, who has been managing partner of ASNA Group for more than seven years. Shishkin announced that Kondratiev’s departure was not related to this deal and he simply “wants to do his own business.” Kondratiev himself did not comment on his departure. Incidentally, according to “Rusprofile”behind him is 5.04% in the capital of Asna LLC.

Alexander Shishkin knows how to ignite the audience with his ideas, even such strange ones as selling beer in a pharmacy. Photo: pharmvestnik.ru

Meanwhile, Alexander Shishkin, apparently getting a taste, continued to expand his business. Apparently, his imagination is limitless. For example, he already declared, that he intends to combine a pharmacy with a cafe and sell beer in it, saying that this is far from the whole idea. At the same time, he argued that neither Roszdravnadzor nor other regulatory structures should have any claims to such a format of pharmacy activities.

Now, if we recall the current appeal of representatives “Asny” to the Prosecutor General’s Office about “unreasonable fines based on the results of inspections”, the meaning of their dissatisfaction becomes partly clear. It can be assumed that the conduct of the current inspections violated some earlier agreements that were reached with the former personalities in the controlling structures. However, the personalities have changed, and checks have come to pharmacies. But this is only one of the possible explanations for the reasons for the “righteous anger” of the “Asna” representatives.

Absolutely living legend

Note that Alexander Shishkin himself is practically a living legend. Moreover, the fact that he is alive was recorded several years ago with the participation of law enforcement agencies.

So, on October 4, 2019, the authors of the site Vademecum, referring to the words of Alexander Shishkin himself, they allegedly claim that he reported that the police came to the office of Asna LLC and reported that the duty unit had received a message about the murder of Shishkin. However, he appeared before the guards alive. Then there was an assumption that the call to the police could be made by collectors, who were approached by the pharmaceutical distributor Katren, who demanded the return of a debt from one of the pharmacies, Alexander Shishkin in that case acted as a guarantor under one of the contracts for the supply of goods in the amount of 15.5 million rubles.

The “Collection Development Center”, representing the interests of “Katren”, claimed that the members of “ASNA”, having accumulated debts to borrowers from some legal entities, liquidated them, and then created new organizations under the auspices of the association, and continued to engage in their activities, as if nothing did not happen.

Today, “Asna” includes more than 11 thousand pharmacies. Photo: pharmvestnik.ru

As another example, the debt of an ASNA member, the Moscow network Nova Vita, was reported. She owed the distributor more than 50 million rubles. After that, the owners of the company, Margarita and Vladimir Kabaev, created new organizations with the same name and continued to work further. In this case, there was no reaction from ASNA at all. Wrote about this story “Kommersant”.

It was obvious that “Asna” Shishkin, which positions itself as an association of representatives of the pharmacy business, is happy to communicate with its “wards” only when their activities are viewed in a positive way. But when SRO members have real problems, the association allegedly distances itself from them, declaring the independence of their business.

Then the Collection Development Center sent letters to pharmaceutical manufacturers in which they suggested that they assess the risks of interaction with Asna and the negative consequences for pharmaceutical distributors. Only after that, at least some kind of reaction followed from Asna.

After the exchange of comments in the media, “Asna” continued to sort things out with the “Katren” company in the judicial plane. Gradually, the scandal subsided.

Why does Shishkin and the organizations under his “wing” need all this? Probably, just to make a profit through their partners, and maybe the possible laundering of some income, which could be obtained, let’s say, not entirely legal methods.

It should be noted that “ASNA” is the largest federal organization, consistently holding a leading position in the ratings of pharmacy chains from leading analysts. According to the analytics company RNCby the beginning of 2021, the association consisted of 11,410 pharmacies.

Yes, and Shishkin himself is no stranger to entrepreneurial activity. According to the data “Rusprofile”he is the founder of two organizations and manages five – Asna LLC and four of its derivative LLCs: Asna Academy, Asna Product, Asna Logistics, ASna Logistics North-West”. Moreover, fruitful (judging by his own comments) cooperation with Gazprombank.

As they say, there is room to grow.