Founders of Russia's largest online retailer announce divorce under bizarre circumstances

Vladislav Bakalchuk, co-founder of one of Russia's largest marketplace platform Wildberries, announced an attempted gangster-style takeover of the company. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video of his conversation with Bakalchuk on his Telegram channel.

Bakalchuk said that in early July, Russ Outdoor company, headed by Levon and Robert Mirzoyan, tried to take over the assets of Wildberries by means of legal schemes. According to the co-founder, they deceived his wife, Tatyana Bakalchuk, after which she left home without an opportunity to see her husband to discuss what was happening.

The marketplace merged with Russ Outdoor Company in June; the shares of both companies in the business were approximately equal.

"The fraudsters do not even try to create the appearance of naturalness and purity of what is happening: the turnover of Russ Outdoor is a hundred times less than that of Wildberries, whereas the business nature of the online retailer and the advertising operator does not coincide either. The brazen gangster-style takeover is obvious. I know that it is brothers Levon and Robert Mirzoyan, as well as several well-known men from the Caucasus that hold the levers of this illegal process,” Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov said.

Kadyrov also said that he could not "stay away from a large-scale fraud on a national scale” and would do "everything possible” to "help bring Tatyana Bakalchuk back home and protect legitimate business.” Kadyrov added that State Duma deputy Adam Delimkhanov would take up this issue on his instructions.

Tatyana Bakalchuk responds to her husband: This is divorce

The founder of Wildberries, Tatyana Bakalchuk, responded to her husband's statements about the illegal takeover of their family business.

According to Tatyana Bakalchuk, "this is not a gangster-style takeover. This is divorce."

She indicated that "everything was agreed with Vladislav from the very beginning, he was personally present at the presentation of the new structure of the united company to top management." As evidence, she showed a photograph in which Vladislav Bakalchuk is seen sitting at a meeting.

It was earlier reported that Wildberries top managers started leaving the company due to internal conflicts. It was said that all the quarrels were due to disagreements between the owners and their subordinates regarding the rights and responsibilities within the company.

Nine-nine percent of Wildberries LLC belongs to the founder and head of the company Tatyana Bakalchuk, as per the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. Another one percent is owned by her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk. According to company's reporting under RAS (Russian Accounting Standards), Wildberries total revenue for 2023 amounted to 539 billion rubles (plus 70% year on year). The bulk of the income came from agency fees (221.6 billion rubles) and retail sales of goods (121.85 billion rubles). Revenue from product exports over the year increased almost 7.5 times, to 85.2 billion rubles, and from advertising services — by 3.7 times, to 45.88 billion rubles. For comparison: advertising revenues of Russia's second largest online retailer Ozon amounted to 70.4 billion rubles (16 percent of all company revenues).

According to Forbes Magazine, Tatyana Bakalchuk's net worth is evaluated at $7.4 billion. She is Russia's wealthiest woman.

Russ and Wildberries announced plans to "merge to create a digital trading platform” in June. The deal had received an approval from the authorities, whereas Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Maxim Oreshkin became a supervisor of the joint project. It was said that Bakalchuk would take office as CEO of the "future united group of companies,” whereas Robert Mirzoyan, head of the advertising group, would become its chief executive officer.

On July 22, Russ and Wildberries created a single media department, and on July 23, it became known that the companies had united their legal services into a joint legal department.