The Moscow Arbitration Institute has introduced a monitoring procedure in respect of CJSC Profitmed. This is stated in the case materials on the website of the court. The reasoning part of the decision has not yet been published.
According to the results of 2022, Profitmed was the 10th largest pharmaceutical distributor in Russia with a turnover of 56.8 billion rubles. and a market share of 2.6%. The company itself was founded back in 1994. Among its founders (as of 2002) were Dmitry and Olga Svirin, FC Profit House (one of its founders is the main owner of Pharmstandard Viktor Kharitonin), chairman of the board of directors of the pharmaceutical distributor Evgeny Strigas and others. Now the shareholders of the company are hidden.
Profitmed’s problems began at the end of last year. His counterparties began to massively apply to the courts demanding the return of debts. According to SPARK-Interfax, in 2022, a total of 38 lawsuits for 541 million rubles were filed against him. Already this year, the number of such applications increased by another 115, and the amount of claims against him increased by 1.9 billion rubles. Among the largest plaintiffs is Aresbank (owned by Kharitonin), which is seeking the return of more than 570 million rubles. As a result, in January of this year, the research and production commercial firm “Eklif” asked to declare “Profitmed” bankrupt. Later, Sberbank, Soyuz and Zenit banks joined her lawsuit. The representative of the latter said that the financial organization made attempts to settle the claims out of court, but the position of the beneficiary and the management of Profitmed forced her to go to court. Inquiries to other creditors remained unanswered. It was not possible to get comments from Profitmed representatives.
It was not possible to find out why the pharmaceutical distributor abruptly stopped paying its counterparties. Profitmed worked as usual until the end of 2022, there were no external manifestations of systemic problems, Nikolai Bespalov, RNC Pharma Development Director, is surprised. But then, according to him, mass layoffs began in the company, and after that, claims from partners and creditors began to come to it.
Despite the fact that only a monitoring procedure has been introduced for Profitmed so far, it is unlikely to be able to pay off creditors, experts interviewed by Vedomosti say. According to the company’s latest financial statements, last year the size of its assets decreased by 30%, and revenue fell by 20%, says Aleksey Sharov, managing partner of Averta Group. Elena Gladysheva, managing partner of the RI-consulting law office, also speaks about this. She draws attention to the fact that at the end of 2022, Profitmed recorded a net loss of 8.8 billion rubles. In this regard, the expert believes that he has little chance of actually paying off creditors on a voluntary basis, which means that he is threatened with bankruptcy and the procedure for selling property. Apparently, Profitmed will cease to exist as a distributor, and its property will be sold at auction, Bespalov believes. Sergey Shulyak, CEO of DSM Group, agrees with this.
A distributor can avoid bankruptcy only if he, represented by his management and an interim manager, is able to restructure debts and agree on the procedure for their repayment, adds Gladysheva.
It is not exactly known what assets Profitmed currently has. Bespalov says that at least the company has warehouse facilities, a fleet of vehicles and contracts with pharmacy chains.