The Russian founders of the Fix Price chain of stores – Sergey Lomakin and Artem Khachatryan – became dollar billionaires during the company’s IPO, Bloomberg reported their appearance. The agency estimated the fortune of each of the two entrepreneurs at $ 3.6 billion. Forbes estimates slightly lower at $ 3.4 billion.
Previously, the retailer placed its securities on the London Stock Exchange at a price of $ 9.75 per share, investors valued the entire company at $ 8.3 billion. Fix Price itself hopes to raise $ 2 billion during the IPO, taking into account the option for additional placement. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund QIA (will buy shares at a placement price of $ 150 million), funds managed by BlackRock (150 million), GIC (100 million) and APG (75 million) decided to participate in the deal.
The start of trading in Fix Price securities on the London and Moscow stock exchanges is scheduled for March 10. The deal could be the largest Russian IPO since 2010, when UC Rusal was listed in Hong Kong and raised $ 2.24 billion.
Fix Price is a Russian chain of stores in the “fixed price store” format, founded in 2007. Now the company network has more than three thousand stores in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union, including Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It ranks 77th in the Forbes ranking of the largest private companies in Russia.
Stores sell food and non-food items – from food to cleaning products and cosmetics – at a set price. Fix Price’s revenue for 2020 amounted to over 190 billion rubles.