In Russia, due to losses, clothing stores of the French Kiabi chain, owned by the owners of the retailers Auchan, Decathlon and Leroy Merlin, may close. Sources in companies in the retail real estate market told RBC about such plans of the network.
The press service of the Kiabi office in Russia confirmed their intentions to leave the market. The company has warned partners and employees about the imminent closure of points.
Discussion of the terms of the preliminary termination of lease agreements with the owners of shopping centers began in December; Kiabi stores may stop working within three to six months, another interlocutor of RBC said.
In particular, the Kiabi SEC Viasna in Altufyevo received a notice of the closure of the store before July 1, a representative of the management company Parus Asset Management said.
The first Kiabi store opened in Russia in 2008.Since then, the number of outlets in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Ufa, Kazan, Samara and Voronezh has grown to 17, according to the brand’s website. In addition, Kiabi has an online store with delivery throughout the country.
A source of RBC who knows the situation in the company said that the reason for the closure of Kiabi in Russia could be low operating performance. Before the decision to terminate the work, several options for the development of the network in Russia were considered. For example, the president of Auchan Retail Russia, Philip Brochard, told Vedomosti in the summer that Auchan intends to change the concept of its hypermarkets in Russia. The company wanted to reduce retail space. It was assumed that the retailer would lease some of them to third-party organizations to open corners. A corner of the Kiabi clothing brand was already operating in the hypermarket in the Aviapark shopping center on Khodynka. According to Kommersant, the chain was also considering a franchise development option.
According to the SPARK system, Kiabi has suffered losses over the past five years: last year, Keruska’s revenue fell by almost 31% to RUB 3.2 billion, and the loss increased by 25% to almost RUB 667 million, RBK notes. …
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