Why Chichvarkin is on the run (the real story). Who is the owner of Euroset Alexander Malis President of the Euroset company

Malis Alexander Adolfovich

Alexander Adolfovich Malis is the president of the retail company Euroset.

Biography

Graduated from the Moscow State University of Commerce with a degree in Financial Accounting and Audit (1995), graduate school at NIFI (1998).

  • In 1990-1995 - expert, financial consultant, head of department, RusConsult company.
  • Since 1995 - commercial director of Corbina Telecom.
  • Since 2000 - Vice President of Corbina Telecom.
  • In 2006 - General Director of CJSC Investelectrosvyaz and acting. General Director of CJSC Kortek (trademark Corbina Telecom).
  • In 2007-2008 - General Director of Corbina Telecom.
  • 2008-2009 - Director for Broadband Development at VimpelCom Group of Companies
  • Since April 2009 - President of the largest Russian cellular retailer, Euroset.

In one of the first video messages to employees after his appointment as Euroset general director, Alexander Malis demonstrated his superiority over the mobile operator MTS, with which his company then had an acute conflict.

“Many people ask me about the conflict with MTS,” Malis said. - This egg-headed operator got offended and began to behave like a hysterical wife... Usually in such cases, a wise husband gives a couple of slaps in the face. I am so familiar with eggs, I do this operation with them every morning.”

Residence in Israel

In 2010, Alexander Malis began extensive work on his site in the village of Aminadav near Jerusalem. Previously, a meat shop was located on the site. Malis explained the choice of location with the desire to “experience the biblical history and past of the people.” The entrepreneur received permission from the local construction commission to build a house, an outbuilding and a swimming pool.

Other residents of this town did not like the 12-meter fence he erected. Malis himself told Marker that only one of 69 neighbors opposed the high retaining wall he built, strengthening the slope of the ravine. The rest of the neighbors are on his side. Therefore, the court took his side.

The parties reached a compromise, the village administration told Marker. The height of the fence will be reduced by 30–50% - it will be different in different places to match the terrain. In addition, the administration says, Malis must plant mature, tall trees next to the new building. The wall (currently brick) will fit better into the landscape due to the fact that it will be covered with local natural stone. “This way it will look much more harmonious,” adds the administration representative.

In November 2011, it became known that the Construction Commission of the Israeli Jerusalem District rejected the appeal of the president of the Euroset company, Alexander Malis, regarding the demolition of the wall of his suburban area, the Kursor news agency reports. Malis was ordered to reduce the height of the wall four times - from 12 to 3 meters.

Since the complex is located on a cliff, permission was also issued to build a wall supporting it. However, when the wall was erected, some local residents and the nature conservation society considered it too high, which violates the appearance and mountainous landscape of the village. As a result, the county building commission last year revoked the lower-level permit and ordered the wall to be demolished.

Malis told CNews that he successfully appealed the district commission's demand in court. The decision to demolish it was reversed, but this did not suit the High Commissioner for Buildings, who now single-handedly established the requirement that a step be added to the wall, reducing its height.

“I do not agree with this requirement and will appeal it again in court,” Malis said. “Creating a step is expensive, and, as technical expertise has established, it is unsafe, since protection against cliffs is lost.”

Due to ongoing disputes over the wall, the President

Products

Mobile phones and digital technology

Turnover

RUB 61.91 billion (2010, IFRS)

Net profit

▲ RUB 5.58 billion (2010, IFRS)

Number of employees Website

Story

Creation and rapid growth of the company

Evgeny Chichvarkin

In the late 1990s - early 2000s, Euroset and its then head Evgeny Chichvarkin persistently emphasized the company’s bright and extraordinary, on the verge of shocking, image. The company’s sharp, “on the verge of a foul” advertising slogans (“Euroset - the prices are just crazy!”, etc.) became an important marketing tool. The company carried out scandalous advertising campaigns and promotions, including “Take off your clothes for a phone,” when participants were asked to undress in the Euroset Communications Palace in order to get a mobile phone; competitions “Miss Breasts”, “Erotic Photography”, etc.

The letters, interesting for their stylistic originality, through which Evgeny Chichvarkin communicated with the company’s personnel, became famous. They, in particular, contained instructions to “remove Samsung phones to distant shelves”, “the use of Nokia phones for personal purposes on company premises is prohibited”, etc. Euroset management did not deny the existence of such letters, but refused to comment on their content. In October 2008, the first color letter was published, addressed to “His Majesty the Buyer.”

External images
"Chichvarkin's Letters"
Letter No. 1
Letter No. 2
Letter No. 3
Letter No. 4

Problems with law enforcement agencies and Chichvarkin’s departure

On September 2, 2008, law enforcement officers conducted a search in the central office of Euroset, related to the investigation into the case of the kidnapping in 2003 of former Euroset forwarder Andrei Vlaskin, who was convicted by the company's security service of stealing cell phones. Based on this fact, a criminal case was opened against the owner of the company, Chichvarkin, and he was put on the international wanted list. Chichvarkin himself fled the country, moving to London.

On April 3, 2010, Evgeniy Chichvarkin’s mother was found dead in her apartment with numerous injuries on her body, the apartment was spattered with blood. At the same time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs officially stated that the woman died of acute heart failure and did not initiate a case of violent death. The media, as well as the businessman himself, expressed opinions that Chichvarkin’s mother was killed in order to put pressure on the businessman or take revenge on him.

In December 2010, the Moscow City Court acquitted Euroset employees who were accused of kidnapping the company's freight forwarder, and soon the Investigative Committee of Russia overturned the decision to arrest Chichvarkin in absentia, the criminal case against him was dropped (at the same time, the case against Euroset for smuggling cell phones phones continued to be developed until January 2012, when it was discontinued "due to amendments to the Criminal Code, according to which the smuggling of goods was decriminalized"). After this, the British judiciary closed the extradition case of the Russian businessman, but he refused to return to his homeland, citing impunity for the police officials who started persecuting him. In the summer of 2011, two police generals, Konstantin Machabeli and Boris Miroshnikov, whom Chichvarkin called the organizers of his persecution, were dismissed by decrees of the Russian President. Top managers of Euroset, who were wrongfully detained on charges of kidnapping, sued the Russian Ministry of Finance for large sums of compensation (for example, the former vice-president of the company Boris Levin - 20 million rubles).

After change of ownership

In February 2009, the company created the Eurovsyo social network for its employees.

In December 2010, Russian director, screenwriter, journalist and actor Ivan Okhlobystin became creative director of Euroset. On March 10, 2011, the company began rebranding: the yellow terrier became the new symbol of the network. It was assumed that in 2011 the new image would appear in approximately 2 thousand salons, in the rest - in 2012.

In April 2011, the company tried to conduct an IPO on the London Stock Exchange, but overvalued its shares, and the order book for the purchase of GDR shares was only 15% subscribed. As a result, the company refused to conduct an initial offering.

Mergers and acquisitions

In May 2005, Euroset bought the “USSR” network of communication stores (stands for “Network of Russian Communication Stores”), which included 32 stores in the Voronezh region, Saratov and Tambov region. On July 31, 2006, Euroset acquired the Ultra network of cellular communication stores, while retaining the Ultra brand.

In December 2006, Euroset management announced the acquisition of a network of cellular communication stores in Moldova, which owns 44 stores.

In the fall of 2011, Euroset acquired 100% of the Alt Telecom electronics retail chain. The purchase of the chain, which includes 520 salons, cost $70 million.

Managers

Owners and management

The owners of the company as of March 2011 were Alexander Mamut's ANN company (50.1%) and VimpelCom (49.9%).

The president of the company is Alexander Malis, and the senior management of Euroset as of December 2011 also included Dmitry Denisov (senior vice president for operations), Viktor Lukanin (vice president for commerce), Dmitry Milshtein (financial director), Sergey Malyshev (vice president for specialized business) and Vyacheslav Yakhin (vice president for marketing). In September 2012, ANN, represented by Alexander Mamut, sold its share of Euroset to MegaFon. .

Activity

Trading pavilion "Euroset" in Tver

The main activities of the company are retail trade in cell phones, portable digital equipment, accessories, connection to telecom operators, and provision of high-tech services.

At Euroset you can purchase and pay for air tickets, traffic police fines, tourist vouchers, tickets to entertainment and sporting events, make subscription payments for satellite television, loan payments, and set up equipment.

Currently, the company's network includes more than 5.1 thousand stores located in 1,464 cities in Russia and the CIS countries. More than 4 thousand of them work in Russia.

Performance indicators

Euroset Group of Companies

The Euroset group of companies includes LLC Trading House Euroset, LLC Euroset-Retail, LLC Pro-Service and LLC Euroset-Logistics.

Euroset-logistic

Euroset-logistic is a limited liability company operating in the logistics market of Russia and the CIS countries since 2005 and is part of the Euroset group of companies.

The quality management system of Euroset-logistic LLC is certified in accordance with the requirements of the international quality standard ISO 9001:2000. The certificate was issued by AFAQ AFNOR International, the international division of the French group AFNOR.

The warehouse complex in Russia includes 17 regional warehouses with a total area of ​​more than 54,500 sq.m., 20,000 sq.m. of which are category “A” warehouses.

Performance indicators:

The services of the Euroset-Logistic Company are regularly used by divisions of the Euroset Holding and such well-known companies as Russian Lotto, Samsung, Panasonic, DHL, Gosloto, Samsonite.

Awards and prizes

On September 9, 2010, Euroset received the Retail Grand-Prix award in the category “Best advertising campaign of 2010 in media channels.”

On December 7, 2010, Euroset received the national award “Company of the Year 2010” in the “Retail Network” category.

Logo

Changed 1 logo. The current one is the 2nd one.

  • In 1997-2011, the logo was the word “Euroset” in blue; instead of the third stripe in the letter “E” there was a Russian flag.
  • From 2011 to the present, the logo is a yellow dog, with the signature “Euroset” underneath it. The font of the inscription has also changed, the letters are now black.

Notes

Links

Euroset was founded in 1997 and is currently one of the most famous brands in Russian business. In addition to mobile payments, visitors to retail outlets have the opportunity to purchase something they need from a large assortment of tablets, laptops, smartphones, cameras, accessories and more.

According to 2013 estimates, the retailer’s share in the total industry market reached 30%.

Currently, Euroset operates in 1,500 cities in Russia and Belarus. According to information provided by the company itself, about 50 million visitors visit its retail outlets every month.

Euroset is also the largest in Russia, providing permanent employment to over 30 thousand people in various specialties.

According to the Best Retail rating - 2010, the Euroset company has become not only the largest non-food chain in the country, but also a leader in terms of profitability, EBITDA and net profit. Over the past few years, I have been able to improve my performance even further, and the update of the entire network played a significant role in this.

Who is the owner of the Euroset company?

As of September 2012, 50.1% of the retailer’s shares were owned by Megafon, which bought a stake from ANN, owned by Alexander Mamut, and the remaining 49.9% were owned by VimpelCom.

The executive director of Euroset is Alexander Malis, who is also a member of the company’s senior management. The rest of the management council are Dmitry Denisov, who is the chief vice president of Euroset for operational activities, Dmitry Milshtein (head of the financial side), Sergey Malyshev (vice president for specialized activities) and Vyacheslav Yakhin, head of marketing.

But Alexander Malis? The specialist, who has held the post of president of Euroset since 2009, previously worked at VimpelCom as head of broadband development, and previously at Corbina Telecom, where he was general director.

Malis graduated from the Moscow State University of Commerce, where he received a diploma with honors as a specialist in Financial Accounting and Audit. Then there was postgraduate study at the Financial Research Institute.

And the beginning of Alexander Malis’s career took place at the RusConsult company, where from 1990 to 1995 he was listed as an expert and financial consultant.

In April 2018, Euroset and Svyaznoy announced that they were merging their stores and creating Russia’s largest retail network of more than 5 thousand stores (the combined network’s total revenue from online sales for 2017 amounted to 22 billion rubles). Euroset for the last 9 years - after its sale to Alexander Mamut - has been led by Alexander Malis, the brother of the owner of the controlling Svyaznoy Solvers group, Oleg Malis. When Alexander Malis was 23 years old and his brother Oleg was 21, they became co-founders of the Corbina Telecom company. In a short time, it occupied an important place in the telecommunications services market, and it was sold to the American company IDT Corporation, from which Renova later bought it. So Alexander Malis knows how to create, develop and sell companies. During the time that he led Euroset, the company updated its business model - expanded the range of products, added popular services, settled online and learned to use new technologies. Alexander Malis told Inc. how to develop offline trade in the digital era, why Euroset top managers go to work as sellers and how to help the buyer without asking: “Can I help you?”

How to reach consumers

To compete, you need to constantly figure out how to become even more convenient for the consumer. For example, if we take the entire volume of money that passes through Euroset, then goods probably make up only 15%, the main part of the turnover is various payments: money transfers, loan repayments, insurance, Kukuruza loyalty cards, air tickets. It's convenient for people. We realized this somewhere in 2012: a person still passes by us, he still needs to pay - and we offer him the most convenient way.

If you go to a Euroset store today, it will seem the same as it did 10 years ago. But everything has changed inside: robots distribute goods, help sellers and monitor their work; Each seller has a mobile application, which receives a huge amount of information he needs. All this makes the service a little more convenient. Many times a little bit, but in total - a lot.

Never ask a customer, “Can I help you with anything?” Just help. People don't like to be approached with this question. In fact, they come precisely to consult with a living person; they simply do not like it when someone imposes themselves on them. That's why we teach salespeople to never say this phrase.

Euroset in numbers

source: company data, Kontur.Focus

59

billion rubles- revenue for 2017.

1,6

million people visit Euroset stores per day.

>500

thousand transactions per day is carried out in Euroset.

26

thousand employees works in the company.

>5

thousand- the number of stores in the chain after merging with the Svyaznoy chain.

About the rules of good management

The main thing a CEO must be able to do is understand where the company is heading and where it should be in a few years. A good manager is one who, on the one hand, strives to achieve the goals set by the shareholders, and on the other, knows how to convey his point of view on these goals to the shareholders. And keep a balance between these two poles.

The second most important thing for a manager is the ability to assemble a team. When looking for employees, I personally first of all pay attention to energy, whether a person wants to achieve something, and only then - to professionalism and experience.

I try to hire strong people, despite the fact that they often provoke conflicts in the team. It is normal when a strong person begins to pull the blanket over himself - if the manager is not ambitious, he will not solve an ambitious task. In order to extinguish conflicts, as a CEO, I must understand who is motivated by what, who has what ambitions.

A professional - especially a top manager - must be able to fit into any corporate culture. During a trial period of 2-3 months, you can understand how well he coped with this.

Ordinary employees need a more complex motivation system. For example, 5 minutes after a sale is made, our salespeople receive a message about what bonus they will receive for it - this is a great motivator.

I don’t believe in “remote work” for middle managers and top managers. Here personal communication plays a big role. I haven't seen any really interesting ideas come out of chat.

A top manager should go to the sales floor at least twice a year to work as a salesperson. No one has ever returned from there without ideas. If you don't smell the soil, you'll forget what it looks like. Consumer behavior is irrational, and some things are not visible from the office, so you need to constantly go to the store. Usually, for another week after such attacks, managers are rushing, and as a result, a lot of things are revised - from the checkout interface to the display of goods.

Strategy is a thing that at any moment shows where you should be in 3 years. Even if the endpoint changes all the time. The world is changing quite quickly, any thing can become outdated in 3 years - therefore the strategy must be constantly adjusted. We monitor a huge amount of data, from markets to consumer behavior, and constantly conduct brainstorms with top management. Sometimes the result is ideas that shift the company's entire strategy.

Euroset: a brief history

The Euroset company was created in 1997 by businessmen Evgeny Chichvarkin and Timur Artemyev. The network of mobile communication salons was famous for its provocative marketing: one of the company's slogans was "Euroset, Euroset, the prices are just ***", during one of the actions, customers were offered to undress by the phone, and in the flagship store of the network on Tverskaya there was a hanged man's doll for the office clerk's poor attitude towards clients.

The network grew quickly and entered the regions in 2003; over time, other portable devices, laptops, accessories, and payment acceptance have been added to mobile phones. In 2008, a criminal case was opened against Yevgeny Chichvarkin in connection with an investigation into the kidnapping of a former Euroset freight forwarder. Chichvarkin left Russia. In September 2008, he and Artemiev sold the company to Russian oligarch Alexander Mamut; in April 2009, Alexander Malis became president of the company. In 2012, Mamut sold his stake in Megafon to Alisher Usmanov, who in 2018 became the sole owner of 100% of the network's shares.

In April 2018, it became known about the merger of the retail networks of Euroset and Svyaznoy. The new network will include more than 5 thousand stores, which will employ more than 30 thousand sellers. The controlling shareholder in the new structure will be the SLV group of Alexander Malis’s brother, Oleg, which owns a controlling stake in the Svyaznoy group of companies (Megafon, which controls Euroset, will get a minority stake of 25% plus 1 share).

Illustration: Alexander Cherepanov

About business online and offline

On the one hand, business is moving online, on the other hand, it is returning to offline. According to our research, consumer behavior on the Internet has changed a lot: three years ago, a client ordered a phone to be delivered to their home or office, and now they pick it up from our point. It’s just that people now live quite actively, it’s a problem for them to become attached to the courier - and at the point the goods wait 3-4 days, you can pick them up when it’s convenient.

Due to a change in user behavior, for example, pickup points will flourish - but not all, but only those that will be convenient for consumers. If people clearly understand what they need, it is much easier for them to order goods on the Internet. And if you need to get several goods from different places at once, it’s easier not to fool around with delivery, but to pick up everything at once in one place.

It’s impossible to exist without online today—they simply won’t know about you. But it can also be difficult without offline. Without online, you can only trade something very niche, which the niche is well aware of. And there are a lot of goods that a person wants to see, touch, feel before buying. Therefore, retailers often need to be present in both places.

The advantage of offline networks is that the buyer can consult on the spot - and buy exactly what is needed. Model lines in technology retail change every 6 months; if a person is not on the cutting edge, he will simply buy the wrong thing. In addition, during a crisis, people buy a lot on credit, and it’s easier to get it in a store.

Providing goods in installments is not always beneficial for business. On the one hand, installment plans with interest increase the average price of the goods, on the other hand, money arrives very slowly and in small quantities. Therefore, although somewhere due to this the market grows, profits usually remain unchanged.

On relations with society and the state

The concept of “social responsibility of business” often hides ordinary marketing. It seems quite cynical to me to build a football ground and use it to promote ourselves.

When a business is required to be socially responsible, it is usually a double taxation system. Or part of the game rules, or a license fee. Charity implies that a person - including the owner of a company - decides for himself what to spend the money he earns on. If the state demands: “We will let you build a factory, and in return you build a football ground,” this is not charity, but a form of paying taxes.

I am against business turning to the state for help. There are different situations, but if possible it is better to avoid this. Business is an activity aimed at making a profit, and, if possible, it should exist autonomously within the rules established by the state.

The state should be interested in having more business - in order to collect more taxes - and in this context it can offer assistance and cooperation to business. Saying: “We built a gas pipeline for you, and you build a plant, let’s do it together,” or “We have a railroad, and in return you will do something else.” This is a mutually beneficial cooperation - but it is not help.

He began his career by assembling parts at an electrical equipment factory and shoeing horses at the hippodrome. Today Malis Alexander is at the helm of the largest retailer Euroset. The businessman spends his leisure time riding a convertible and hopes that his grandchildren will remember him as a reformer, since it was he who made the Internet accessible to people. But among representatives of the communications market, Malis Alexander has gained fame as a creative and talented top manager who knows how to timely catch trends in the mass market. The ex-owner of Euroset, a businessman, also speaks positively about his successor, saying that Malis’s management style “combines everything positive that fits into the concept of ‘cynicism’.” Alexander leads like a true pragmatist. What was his career path? Let's consider this issue in more detail.

Biography facts

Alexander Malis, whose biography is undoubtedly fascinating and interesting, is a native of the Russian capital.

He was born in 1972. Since childhood, he showed interest in electronics and, while still in school, began collecting parts at one of the electrical engineering factories. At the same time, Malis Alexander understood that he could not manage in life without higher education.

Student years

The young man enters the university, choosing the specialty “applied mathematics”. After some time, he changed his university to the Moscow State University of Commerce, defining for himself a specialized area - “financial accounting and auditing”. The young man will receive a diploma from this university in 1995.

During his student years, Malis Alexander begins his working life: he is at the hippodrome, having learned this craft in a couple of months. It should be noted that working as a blacksmith was quite highly paid. For one procedure he received about 20 rubles with an average salary of 150 rubles per month.

At the same time, journalists wrote a lot of contradictory information about where and at what time the future owner of Euroset worked.

Labor activity

According to some sharks of the pen, Malis Alexander Adolfovich from 1990 to 1995 held the positions of financial analyst and department director at the audit company Rusconsult. In 1992, the young man worked as one of the publishing houses and, at the same time, founded a company that “provided organizational services.”

Corbina Telecom

However, the truly major project of Alexander Malis was implemented in 1994. Together with his brother Oleg, who was an expert in the field of banking consulting, he established the telecommunications commercial structure Corbina Telecom.

De jure, she was engaged in providing consulting services in the field of lending to private companies and searching for investors in business projects. After some time, they de facto began reselling telecommunications services. The volume of investment in the brainchild of Alexander and Oleg amounted to about three thousand dollars.

In 1996, the brothers bought a telephone exchange for 50 thousand dollars, where the first sites of their own network were created - this made it possible for Corbina Telecom to enter the market of cellular operators.

Long-term change of ownership

Two years later, the company's turnover amounted to $10 million. Investments in the company were needed, otherwise it would not have withstood the competition. Alexander and Oleg Malis decide to sell Corbin to the IDT concern (USA).

The purchase and sale object was valued at $9 million. The brothers remained to work in the sold company as hired managers. Alexander Malis, who previously headed the commercial department, whose employees were involved in developing the client base and promoting new services, including long-distance and international telephony, became vice president of Corbina.

In 2006, the businessman was appointed to the position of head of the company Investelectrosvyaz CJSC, which belongs to Corbina. Soon Viktor Veksler and Alexander Mamut become co-owners of Corbina.

At the beginning of 2007, Malis became acting. O. General Director of the parent company of Corbina - CJSC Kortek. In February, the prefix "acting" was abolished, since Alexander Adolfovich headed the Kortek company, a controlling stake in which was acquired by the domestic telecommunications structure Golden Telecom three months later.

In February 2008, VimpelCom became the owner of Golden Telecom and Corbina Telecom. Soon Alexander Malis is appointed broadband access to RuNet of the VimpelCom group of companies.

In the fall of 2008, Russian media reported that the investment firm A&NN, owned by Alexander Mamut, bought the Euroset company from businessmen Artemyev and Chichvarkin.

"Euroset"

Today this structure is the largest supplier of cell phones. The Euroset store operates in almost every Russian region.

In mid-autumn 2008, VimpelCom acquired 49 percent of Euroset shares from Alexander Mamut. In April of the following year, Alexander Malis became the president of this company, who planned to work in this capacity for three years. He was supposed to make the Euroset store even more in demand. Some experts considered his candidacy the most suitable for the post of president, citing the fact that the former owner of Corbina knew how to develop his brainchild even with a limited budget.

However, as Alexander Malis stated, Euroset will not undergo radical reform; all the features invented by Chichvarkin will be inviolable. His task is to ensure that the structure he heads does not stop in its development.

Family status

Is businessman Alexander Malis happy in his marriage, whose wife does everything possible to make him feel comfortable and cozy at home? Absolutely yes. Alexander Adolfovich is the father of two daughters, whom he simply adores.

Hobby

In his free time, the businessman enjoys gardening. The Russian printed publication "Standard" once secured his status as the owner of one of the most beautiful gardens in the country, the decor of which is made in the British style. The businessman states that the process of planting vegetation helps him restore peace of mind, which is lost literally during a week of working life. Alexander Malis loves to stroll through his garden when he has a free moment. He also rides horses and collects rare weapons. Knows English.