Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Alexander Khinshtein is ironic about the intention of the owner of one of the Russian publishing houses to sell the business after a meeting with the parliamentarian. It was dedicated to the sale of books with LGBT themes.
– I’m filming LGBT corruption. I’m flying from the evil eye, – so the Samara deputy Khinshtein commented on the post about the sale of one of the Russian publishing houses.
It says about the intention of the owner of the publishing house Popcorn Books Denis Kotov to sell the business. The source at the same time states that it appeared immediately after the meeting with the parliamentarian.
Khinshtein and Kotov met literally last week, and at the same time, the fact that the publisher appeared in the public council of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation caused indignation of a certain public.
However, the meeting was devoted to the law on the total ban on LGBT propaganda, pedophilia and gender reassignment in books, movies, advertising and the media. It entered into force on December 5, 2022, and its violators-individuals face a fine of 50 to 400 thousand rubles, officials from 100 to 800 thousand rubles, and legal entities – up to 5 million rubles.
According to Vedomosti, the first administrative case under this law was initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in January 2023 against Popcorn Books.
The reason was the novel published by the company about the relationship of two young men “Summer in a Pioneer Tie” by Katerina Silvanova and Elena Malisova (recognized by the Ministry of Justice as foreign agents). In the All-Russian book rating in the first half of 2022, it ranked first in terms of sales in monetary terms (over 49.8 million rubles) in the fiction segment.
– Mr. Kotov explained that he bought the publishing house only last year and intends to radically change its policy. He declared a categorical rejection of LGBT culture: he has already withdrawn the most scandalous publications from sale, Khinshtein said after the meeting.
Then he expressed the hope that “words will not go wrong with deeds and Popcorn Books will finally change its” blue “vector”, however, the publishing house will still have to pay a fine.
Kotov himself confirmed to Vedomosti his intention to sell Popcorn Books, but experts disagree on this issue. Some say that the asset has acquired toxicity, which may lead to a sale at a significant discount – probably at least 4 times. Others do not exclude that the price will be pulled out by a talented team, a package of rights to books and bestsellers in the stash. If all this is available, of course.
Kotov acquired 100% of Popcorn Books LLC (legal entity of Popcorn Books) in July 2022. Previously, 65.5% of the publishing house was owned by the Irish company Bookmate Limited, another 24.5% belonged to the CEO of the Individuum publishing house Alexei Dokuchaev, 10% – occupied until the summer of 2022 Andrey Baev, CEO of the Bookmate digital book service in Russia (all of them were recognized by the Ministry of Justice as foreign media agents in October 2022). At the same time, Kotov bought out 100% of Individual Print LLC (the legal entity of the Individuum publishing house) from Bookmate Limited and Dokuchaev.
Popcorn Books was founded in 2018 and specializes in young-adult literature on the developmental processes of young people of both sexes, including “problems of self-identity, racism and sexism, attitudes towards one’s own body.”
In 2021, the revenue of Popcorn Books LLC amounted to 10.1 million rubles, and the net loss was 1.4 million rubles. But these data weakly correlate with the real volume of sales of the publishing house, experts say: before the adoption of the law, sales of books by the publishing house could be about 500 million rubles. per year, and after adoption – to decrease by 2 times.
Kotov himself is known as the founder of the Bukvoed bookselling network. In 2018, it merged with the New Bookstore chain, which was later renamed Chitay-Gorod and became the base for the largest bookselling network of the same name, Chitay-Gorod-Bukvoed.
Currently, Kotov owns 7.09% of Chitay-Gorod LLC and the same stake in other legal entities of the united book network – Partner ID LLC, New Book Center LLC. The beneficiary of the network “Chitay-gorod – Bukvoed” is the founder and president of the publishing group “Eksmo-AST” Oleg Novikov.