"Metric" turns into "Juno". Metrica leaves the market

The Metrica chain, which until recently was one of the leaders in the Russian DIY market, is closing hypermarkets in St. Petersburg. According to media reports, seven stores have already stopped working or will do so in the near future. In total, over the past year and a half, the number of retail outlets in the chain has decreased from more than one hundred to forty.

DIY retailer Metrica may close almost all hypermarkets in St. Petersburg. Three network facilities are preparing to cease operation:

• on Pulkovskoe highway,
• Peat road,
• Energetikov Avenue.

The latter is no longer on the list of stores on the official Metrica website. A little over a month ago, the publication Fontanka.ru reported the closure of the facility on Bolshoy Prospekt of Vasilyevsky Island and the upcoming cessation of the work of hypermarkets on Chkalovsky Prospekt, Fuchika Street and Nauki Avenue (with reference to the tenants of the space).

On the official website of Metrica, 7 objects appear in the list of retail outlets in St. Petersburg. Six of them, according to the media, have either already been closed, or this is about to happen. Meanwhile, it was in the northern capital that the network began its work.

One of the hypermarkets - on Pulkovskoe Highway - is up for auction. The initial price of the object is 685 million rubles. The auction is scheduled for September 5. Potential buyers are still unknown. “These hypermarkets do not fit our format,” said Igor Kolynin, marketing director of STD Petrovich. Representatives of almost all other leading DIY and household chains operating in St. Petersburg refused to comment on possible participation in the auction.

The Metrica retailer has been experiencing big problems since at least the beginning of last year. Then it announced the closure of 15 of more than 100 stores. By mid-May, the number of retail outlets had dropped to 68, by the summer there were no more than 40 left. According to Infoline, the chain’s revenue for 2015 decreased by 2.5 times compared to 2014: from 11.7 billion rubles. up to 4 billion

Last year, suppliers initiated bankruptcy proceedings for Metrica, but the structures of the network owner, Evgeniy Lebedev, managed to take control of the process by buying out the debts. However, the network began to accumulate new obligations, and in the summer of this year the process “went into a second round,” market participants familiar with the situation argued.

The building materials market is falling for the second year in a row.

This year, the Metrica chain of construction hypermarkets closed all St. Petersburg stores. In August, the founder of the chain, Evgeny Lebedev, sold the management company SBR Corporation, which had three hypermarkets left, to Denis Izbrecht (80%) and Alexey Kaverin (20%). The cost of the transaction did not exceed 1 billion rubles, then General Director of Infoline Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov estimated. In addition to three stores, the deal also included land plots and other real estate, including the Formida business center.

Metrica is one of the oldest DIY networks in St. Petersburg, founded in the early 2000s. At its peak in 2014, it included more than 100 stores in 70 cities in the North-West, Central and Volga Federal Districts. Infoline estimated its turnover for 2014 at about 15 billion rubles. The chain ranked fifth among federal DIY retailers, behind Leroy Merlin, OBI, Castorama, and Maxidom.

The crisis and falling demand forced the owners of Metrica to reduce the network. As a result, revenue in 2015 fell to 6 billion rubles, and in 2016 it no longer exceeded 1.5 billion rubles, says Burmistrov. Bankruptcy proceedings have been introduced in the Metrica operating company SBR Market LLC. The register of creditors includes claims for 2.3 billion rubles, as follows from the file of cases.

Lebedev negotiated a merger with Yulmart, but they were unsuccessful. Two factors had an impact: Yulmart’s overload with its projects and the lack of funding for the reconception of Metrica, explained Yulmart co-owner Dmitry Kostygin this spring.

After the departure of Metrica, there was a redistribution of sales and customer flows in favor of more efficient retailers, especially in large formats, explains Burmistrov. The main beneficiaries of Metrica's departure are the retailers Petrovich, Maksidom, Leroy Merlin, the Finnish K-rauta in St. Petersburg and the Vimos trading house in the Leningrad region, he believes.

The DIY market in St. Petersburg is the most saturated in Russia; the departure of one of the players has led to some redistribution of forces in the market, says Artem Taraev, general director of K-rauta. Former Metrica customers have been redistributed to other DIY stores, notes Maria Evnevich, a member of the board of directors of Maxidom. According to her, this had a positive effect on sales at Maxidom, but the general stabilization of the economic situation and exchange rates was more important. General Director of STD Petrovich Evgeniy Movchan agrees that buyers from closing chains are moving to other retailers. Residents of different areas of the city are accustomed to visiting construction and finishing goods stores located near their homes, says Taraev. The assortment of K-rauta and the consumer audience are somewhat different from Metrica’s customers, but, for example, in the south of the city one of the K-rauta stores is located near two closed Metrica hypermarkets; some of their customers switched to us and to other players, adds Taraev.

The DIY market is showing negative dynamics for the second year in a row; in the first half of 2016, the drop was 12%, Movchan recalls. In a falling market, there is consolidation, an increase in the share of large and successful players due to the departure of weaker ones from the market, including Metrica, he adds. There are more opportunities for business development and opening new stores, says Taraev.

The main St. Petersburg construction dump is closing. The metric is supposedly under reconstruction. It's a nightmare inside. There is a so-called “total sale” - discounts up to 90%! Attractive? Not that word. Let's see what they sell there. Hm. Old yellow water coolers, broken dusty chairs, appliances from the last century and much more. Welcome to our sofa store! There are a lot of PHOTOS and excellent lots under the cut.

It started when I went to buy an apron for the kitchen. Why? I don’t know, the weather is good, the ice is excellent, the wind is invigorating, why not?

As a prelude, I want to say that Metrica is the main construction hypermarket in St. Petersburg. It is difficult to find a more miserable place for shopping, although there is still K-rauta, but it is of a higher rank.

Even in distant times, when fate forced me to work there, I considered Metrica a garbage dump.

Now she looks even worse, although it couldn't be worse. This is not a store, but some kind of dump.

It’s as if it’s a huge mezzanine or a Soviet balcony, on which all the junk no one needs is piled up, only not for free, but also for money.

Uplifting signs say that the second floor is closed due to reconstruction. I must say, as long as I can remember, there has always been reconstruction in Metrics. It is never clear what exactly, but it is there and in full swing.

No, seriously? This cooler needs a whole fucking army to drink it.

Considering that office equipment, chairs, tables and even coolers are displayed at the entrance, it is unlikely that the metric will rise from the ashes like a Phoenix.

No, this is not a photo of a landfill near the house, this is a sale in Metrica, stop asking again.

And for some reason, it was I, an ordinary left-wing person who entered the store, who felt ashamed that this junk, which belongs in a landfill, was put up for sale.

I have no idea who should buy this. A desperate beggar or local homeless people? It was possible to give it to the latter for free; after all, living in the bushes with a table and a cooler is much more comfortable than without them.

Just so that it doesn’t seem like I’m exaggerating, look at the photographs with your own eyes, they will say more than the text. To be honest, I have only seen such blatant crap for sale at huge homeless markets, where the appropriate clientele came to rummage through the garbage.

Who needs swear words for a mower? — Please weigh a couple of kilos.

I have a whole box of these keyboards lying around at home. I'm ashamed to put them on Avito. Moreover, it’s a shame to even take it out of the house at night into the trash, you never know who will see it.

But here they normally sell for 800 rubles, although for this money you can buy two new ones. Hucksters from Avito, envy.

By the way, if you decide to open your own office, take a table, or better yet two.

Atishniks, come on over. It seems that these are the only cases from which someone accidentally wiped the dust.

I sat at something like this table at school, but no one threw it away or sold it - they just repainted it every year. And again on a long and painful journey of gaining knowledge.

Of course, chairs are the best item in today's sofa store. Seriously, what gets put out in our yard every day for trash looks much better.

I found the best offer. Any power tool for 60 rubles. I took a whole bag. Everything is dirty, broken, in short, warm greetings to Metrica marketers. Or whoever you have there.

Jacuzzis, in which someone clearly had a great time. Or maybe several bodies were dismembered here, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

Back to the Future. A printer from the past for two hundred dollars. Almost for nothing. Take it.

Clients of the Metrica network received an SMS about 70% discounts in three hypermarkets - on Pulkovskoye Shosse, 53, Torfyanaya Road, 17, and Energetikov Avenue, 3 - due to their closure. Employees of the two stores confirmed the authenticity of the messages, but did not give a time frame for stopping work. The stores will close when all the goods are sold, one of them said. The stores are still open, said Kirill Neshcheret, general director of SBR Corporation LLC (owns Metrica). Competition for the sale of a hypermarket with an area of ​​14,421 sq. m on Pulkovskoye Highway, together with the site, OJSC Russian Auction House set for September 5, the starting price is 685 million rubles. A very promising place for large DIY retailers, given the volume of housing construction in this area, says Andrey Kosarev, general director of the St. Petersburg office of Colliers International.

In the fall of 2015, the owners of Metrica put up for sale part of their St. Petersburg assets, including 8.8 hectares on Torfyanaya Road and a class B business center with a retail part (total area - about 23,000 sq. m) on Energetikov Avenue for 1.5 billion and 1.3 billion rubles. accordingly, sources familiar with the retailer’s plan said last year. The real cost of these objects now does not exceed 450–500 million rubles, possible buyers are retailers, both specialized and FMCG, or developers, says General Director of Infoline Analytics Mikhail Burmistrov. Purchasing buildings can cost RUB 100,000. for 1 sq. m, and rent is 600–1000 rubles per sq. m. m per month, says ARIN vice-president Ekaterina Lapina. The property on Peat Road is interesting for housing construction, Kosarev notes. According to him, retailers prefer to rent space rather than incur the costs of construction or purchase.

The K-rauta chain (part of the Finnish concern Kesko) in February 2016 bought the Metrika hypermarket on Vyborg highway for 1 billion rubles. and is building a store near the Parnas metro station; its strategy involves expanding to 10 points. A representative of K-raut refused to comment on the possible purchase or lease of the closing Metrika hypermarkets. “These hypermarkets do not fit our format”, says Igor Kolynin, Marketing Director of STD Petrovich. In January 2017, the Hoff furniture chain intends to open its first hypermarket in St. Petersburg. A representative for the retailer was not available for comment Friday. According to Infoline, in the second quarter, the DIY market in St. Petersburg decreased by 14% to 25.5 billion rubles. The market is moving in different directions, some players, for example K-raut, have a growing turnover; in a difficult economic situation and falling demand, the quality of management and concept become especially important, said Pavel Lokshin, general director of K-raut in Russia (sales in the division Kesko's construction and technical trade outside Finland increased by 10% in local currencies in June 2016). According to the results of the first half of the year, comparable sales of STD Petrovich increased by 10%, despite the forecast for a market decline of 8% this year, says Kolynin from Petrovich. Metrica's revenue for 2015 fell by almost 2 times to 6 billion rubles. (excluding VAT), this year it will not exceed 2 billion rubles, Burmistrov estimated.

The main owner of the SBR Corporation, founded in 1995, is Evgeny Lebedev. 24 Metrica stores remain in the chain in the Northwestern Federal District and the Tver Region. Since July 2015, bankruptcy proceedings have been introduced at SBR Market LLC.