The main owner of the PIK Group, Sergey Gordeev, has agreed with TPS Real Estate to sell the Columbus shopping and entertainment center. RBC was told about this by three sources in the retail market. The deal is in its final stages, explains one of them.
RBC sent a request to the press services of PIK Group and TPS Real Estate.
TPS Real Estate is owned by Lilia Rotenberg, daughter of Arkady Rotenberg, as well as a trust of the families of Alexander Ponomarenko and Alexander Skorobogatko. The businessmen were Rotenberg’s partners in the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, and the three of them own control at Sheremetyevo Airport.
Initially, a third of TPS Real Estate was directly owned by Arkady Rotenberg, but after he fell under US sanctions in 2014, his son Igor got his share. Subsequently, in 2018, the latter also fell under US sanctions, but before that he transferred a stake in TPS Real Estate to his sister. After that, Forbes for the first time included Lilia Rotenberg in the list of the richest businessmen in Russia – in 2020 she took 191st place in the rating, in 2021 – 200th place with an asset estimate of $ 550 million. As reported by the Dozhd TV channel (recognized by the Ministry of Justice foreign agent) in 2017, in the early 2010s, Lilia Rotenberg founded a company in Berlin to organize treatment and examinations in German clinics. But as Rotenberg’s representative then clarified, by this time Lilia Rotenberg was not involved in the company and lived in Russia.
What is known about the object of the transaction
Columbus is located in the south of Moscow on Varshavskoe shosse near Prazhskaya metro station. The total area of the complex is 278 thousand square meters. m, rent – 135 thousand square meters. m. The shopping complex was opened in 2015. The amount of the transaction may be about 40-45 billion rubles, estimates the head of the capital markets and investments department of IBC Real Estate Mikael Kazaryan.
The shopping center is owned by Mirs LLC, 100% owned by Sergey Gordeev. Mirs’ revenue for 2021 (latest available data) amounted to RUB 4.9 billion. — 27% more than in 2020, when the most stringent restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic were in effect.
The shopping center, as well as Gordeev’s share in Mirs, are pledged to the Otkritie FC bank. The SPARK system and the extract from the Unified State Real Estate Register (EGRN; RBC has it) indicate that the pledge agreement was registered on March 14, 2023 and is valid until March 2030. Previously, Mirs had already acted as a borrower from Otkritie, but in 2018 Gordeev refinanced Otkritie loans to VTB; it was reported that their amount is 40 billion rubles. FC Otkritie has been owned by VTB Bank since December last year. RBC sent inquiries to the press services of these two banks.
How the owners of Columbus changed
The Columbus shopping center was built on the site of a construction market and belonged to businessman Solomon Manashirov and his brother Gennady (also known as Roman Manashirov) and former State Duma deputy Ildar Samiev. In 2013, Gazprombank issued a loan of $350 million for the construction of a shopping center. Under the terms of the agreement, if the dollar exchange rate rises above 70 rubles. the loan was automatically converted into rubles. In 2016, Otkritie Bank bought out the debt to Gazprombank. Sergey Gordeev became the owner of the complex in 2017.
In 2016, a year after the opening of the shopping center, the Presnensky Court of Moscow arrested Solomon Manashirov in absentia on charges of tax evasion for 98 million rubles. In 2020, the investigation dropped this charge from the businessman. Gennady Manashirov was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2018 in the case of several episodes of bribery. A criminal case was also opened against Samiyev in 2017 on charges of fraud, and since 2021, bankruptcy proceedings have been introduced against him.
How do buyers and sellers know?
In addition to Columbus, Gordeev also owns the Salaris, Paveletskaya Plaza shopping centers and the Kuzminki Mall, which is under construction. Their total area is 661 thousand square meters. m, rent – 273 thousand square meters. m. These assets are merged into Moll Management Group. According to Forbes, last year she received $ 100 million from the lease of shopping centers. But Gordeev’s main business is still the development group of companies PIK (controls 59% of the shares). The businessman has been planning to sell Columbus for several years, before the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he agreed to sell the shopping center to Malltech, but the deal did not take place.
TPS Real Estate received $95 million from commercial real estate leases last year, according to Forbes. The company owns shopping centers with a total area of more than 669 thousand square meters. m (of which rent – 311 thousand sq. m) – “Good!” and Oceania in Moscow, MoreMall in Sochi, as well as Gallery Krasnodar and Gallery Novosibirsk. The company’s portfolio also included the Ocean Plaza shopping center in Kyiv. In March 2023, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine filed a lawsuit to seize this asset in favor of the state.
TPS Real Estate was created with the aim of investing in a portfolio of high-quality properties, but in the end it chose the path of building its own shopping centers, recalls Sayan Tsyrenov, director of the real estate transaction support practice at Trust Technologies. “Now the market has changed, building retail real estate is not so profitable, and the purchase of Columbus for TPS Real Estate looks like a logical step,” the expert notes. This is a strategic investment that can strengthen the investor’s portfolio, says Alan Baloev, Head of Capital Markets at the Commonwealth Partnership.
Why this asset is now interesting
The retail real estate market over the past few years has experienced several shocks associated with both the pandemic and the departure of foreign brands, says Tsyrenov. Now, according to the expert, he is also going through a difficult period: after the start of partial mobilization in September 2022, part of the solvent population left Russia.
In 2022, the retail trade turnover in Russia, according to Rosstat, decreased by 6.7%, in comparable prices, to 42.5 trillion rubles. (in Moscow – by 9.7%, up to 628.9 billion rubles). This was influenced by the decline in real disposable incomes of the population (by 1% last year) and the transition to the so-called savings model of behavior. The strongest drop in consumption occurred in the segment of non-food products. In 2023, the decline continued, retail trade turnover in Russia decreased by 6.6% in January compared to the same period last year.
The situation affects the market of shopping centers “not in a positive direction”, and most objects are profitable to buy only with discounts, Tsyrenov notes. “But at the same time, a number of assets remain on the market, which, due to their very successful location and high-quality concept, keep tenant sales at a high level. And Columbus is one of these facilities,” explains Tsyrenov. This shopping center has no direct competitors in the south of Moscow, it is located in a densely populated residential area, people continue to go there both for shopping and to spend time, the expert lists. In addition, next to the shopping center there are bus transfers going to the Moscow region, which further increases traffic.
“The shopping center is at its peak, as it was commissioned at high rental rates, has stable strong traffic, and, most importantly, tenants have very high turnover there,” confirms Marina Malakhatko, head of the retail department of the CORE.XP consulting company. The risk for the buyer can only be the loss of rental income, she says: “If there is some kind of collapse in the market, then, of course, having a big expensive asset with a lot of credit is a risk. But for a professional company that effectively manages its portfolio, I don’t see any problems.” Considering stable customer traffic and a minimum vacancy of 3.2%, the project currently has minimal risks, Kazaryan agrees.
