Three children of the founder of the cosmetics company Natura Siberica Andrey Trubnikov – Dmitry and Ekaterina from their first marriage and Elizaveta from the second – received 20% in each of the three legal entities of the group – Natura Siberica LLC, Agafia’s Tasty Products LLC and Siberian Helicopter LLC “.
According to SPARK-Interfax, these transactions were completed on December 30, 2022. It also says that for the remaining structures of Natura Siberica (First Solution, Planet Organika, Organic Shop Rus, Kamchatka Mama, Severnaya Kosmetika, Black Rock), applications have been submitted to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities for amendments to the constituent documents, extracts on them will be ready in mid-January.
A source close to Natura Siberica says that in this case, we are also talking about the transfer of shares in these companies to Trubnikov’s children. Vedomosti failed to get comments of the latest. Law firms representing their interests declined to comment, citing official secrecy. The official representative of the cosmetic company refrained from commenting until the end of the process of entering into the inheritance.
The conflict between Trubnikov’s relatives began immediately after the businessman’s death in January 2021. His children began to claim shares in the group’s companies, as well as the widow Anastasia Trubnikova, who at the time of the death of the founder of Natura Siberica was in divorce proceedings with him. She also tried through the courts to obtain recognition of her children as her husband’s dependents with the allocation of a share in the inheritance to them, but the courts refused her this requirement. Now the hereditary conflict can be considered resolved, says a source close to the company. He clarifies that legally all litigation between the heirs will end within a month. According to him, the transfer of shares in the structures of Natura Siberica to Trubnikov’s children became possible after the court declared the businessman’s marriage to his third wife Anastasia invalid.
This is also confirmed by a person close to one of the participants in the corporate conflict in a cosmetics company: he claims that the Dorogomilovsky inter-district prosecutor filed a lawsuit to invalidate the marriage. True, according to him, the Kuntsevsky District Court refused to satisfy his demands, but in November 2022, the court of appeal overturned this decision. A month later, the definition of the latter survived in cassation. On the website of the Moscow City Court there is a card of the relevant case, the dates of decision-making on it coincide with what was said by the interlocutor of Vedomosti, but the documents themselves were not published due to a court ban. Based on the fact that Trubnikov’s children began to receive certificates of the right to the corresponding part of the inheritance, it can be assumed that the final composition of the heirs has finally been determined, says Dmitry Galantsev, managing partner of the Propositum Law Office.
It was not possible to get comments from Anastasia Trubnikova or her representative, but, judging by the database of the arbitration courts, she still continues to sue other family members.
In particular, she disputes the transfer (first to trust management, and then to ownership) by Trubnikov’s first wife Irina and her son Dmitry of their shares in the structures of a cosmetics company, previously unknown to Corporation AG (now she owns about 40% in each of them). True, so far most of her statements have not reached the stage of proceedings on the merits. An exception is the lawsuit against Agafya’s Tasty Foods company: the Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied it, now the case is being considered by the court of appeal. It follows from the materials that Irina Trubnikova, when selling her share, did not notify the heirs of the opportunity to exercise the pre-emptive right, notifying only the trustee appointed by the notary, explains Stanislav Valezhnikov, managing partner of the Central District law firm. Now, according to him, taking into account the fact that the marriage of Andrei and Anastasia Trubnikov was declared invalid, the claims of the latter should be denied.
The dispute between the heirs was not the only problem of Natura Siberica. After Trubnikov’s death, a corporate conflict also began in the company, which led to various litigations. The heirs, for example, challenged the appointments and actions of several temporary managers, and the management challenged a number of decisions by Irina Trubnikova, due to which the production and operation of stores were suspended. Now the contradictions between the parties have been settled, but the claims of the owners against the former managers and the notary who opened the inheritance case are still being considered in various instances.
Completion of inheritance and corporate disputes will bring closer the sale of Natura Siberica to a strategic investor, experts interviewed by Vedomosti say. Felix Lieb, who previously worked at Sistema, was appointed CEO of the cosmetics group. Market participants called the latter a potential buyer of the company. “AFK Sistema considers Natura Siberica an investment-attractive business in which the corporation sees great potential,” says its representative, but he denies that she currently owns any assets of the group and is in any way connected with Corporation AG . He did not comment on the progress of the proceedings between the heirs.
It was not possible to contact the representative of the Corporation AG. Galantsev, however, notes that the possible purchase of the company by an investor has another deterrent – a litigation between the structure of Natura Siberica – First Solution LLC, the Dmitrov Experimental Plant of Aluminum and Combined Tape and the Ingosstrakh insurance group. The last two require about 3.8 billion rubles from the cosmetics company. for a fire in the premises rented by Natura Siberica for its production. In September 2021, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region recovered about 3 billion rubles from the defendant, but then the appeal overturned this decision and sent the case for a new trial. In November 2022, the claims of the plaintiffs were rejected, the consideration of the appeal was scheduled for January 31 this year, reminds Galantsev.
At the end of 2020, Trubnikov estimated the business of Natura Siberica at $500 million, and at the beginning of 2022, experts called the figure already at $70–100 million. amounted to 11 billion rubles, in 2021 it decreased to 9.3 billion rubles. (then part of the stores closed and production stopped). Now there are 71 company stores in Russia, the company also supplies products abroad through distributors.
