Reviewed by Trusted User

Let me tell you about my experience in MBG Impex.
I'll start with the fact that this office belongs to Sergei Sergeevich Minaev. Yes, yes, to the very faithful Putinist who hosted the Minaev Live program (better known as Zashkvar TV), wrote the so-called "books" ("Duhless" and something else) and became famous for beating up with Eduard Bagirov by journalist Andrei Ryvkin, who wrote badly about them.

This Minaev has a large wine business, namely, he supplies wines from different countries to almost all Moscow and St. Petersburg shops and restaurants. There are shelves with his wines in almost all store chains ("The Seventh Continents", "Perekrestok", "Relax", etc.) and restaurants (including "Mayak").

This man has his literary and television career, as well as connections with confidants of Vladimir Putin, thanks to his profitable wine business. The volume of wine sold is distributed among several CJSCs, which can often be located in the same offices. This is done, among other things, in case one of them suddenly has problems with a license to sell alcohol - then another satellite company starts selling its goods.

So, in Moscow, in addition to MBG (www.mbg-wine.ru, www.mbgimpex.ru), there is Millennium (mwine.ru, vk.com/millennium_mbg), there are firms in St. Petersburg, etc. Almost no one visits the websites of these companies, they are made so that there is at least some kind of presentation on the Internet, all the main income comes from restaurants and shops.

What is the attitude of the owner of this wine corporation and the faithful state dog towards the employees of his own companies, through whose work he earns his money?

Let's start with the fact that none of the employees receives a copy of the employment contract. It is not issued even if you ask after several months of work.
Irregular working hours are the norm there. Sometimes people have to stay up until eleven o'clock in the evening. There are no awards for this. But for minor morning delays, employees are fined.

To reduce the degree of dissatisfaction, sometimes free wine is distributed, namely the wine that was written off for non-compliance with trade requirements (with sediment, sour, etc.), which was not accepted by shops or restaurants. But employees are happy with such "compensation" ...

For lunch, much less than the allotted time is allotted, fifteen to twenty minutes (half an hour is already a lot).
An employee can be assigned permanent duties that he does not have to perform, and they will not be paid in any way. Sometimes something unrelated to work has to be done by the whole department - one of the old employees told me about one vivid case: office workers were harnessed all day off to help with moving to a new office - to carry furniture, papers. Without paying for it, of course.

According to the same person, all this leads to the fact that normal people do not stay there for more than a year and leave. Only those who have no special prospects to go somewhere else remain, or those who believe that everything is as it should be.

A separate story is required by the head of the documentation department Elena Merenkova (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001233073765). If you happen to get a job in this office, better go to another department.

It is surprising why even Minaev should keep such an unprofessional, lazy and useless employee on the staff. Even people from other departments agree that this person is out of place. Elena Merenkova never explains anything to new employees, and if something doesn’t work out for them, she does it with an air as if she is doing a great favor. In communication with subordinates, he behaves vulgarly, presses, tries to humiliate or psychologically pressure for no reason, always lets employees know that they are nobody.

All this completely destroys the atmosphere of cooperation in the department. She comes to work much later than her subordinates, leaves for a long time at lunch and drinks wine (this is not an exaggeration !!!), and when she returns, she begins to tell stories from her life that are distracting for everyone (with whom she dined yesterday and how long she had not had sex - this is, again, not an exaggeration!) She leaves work earlier, and ordinary workers rake documents for another two hours in excess of the norm (her activity is limited to carrying out several operations per day through 1C and sometimes chastising managers who have not submitted reports). She swears at the mess on the desktop, while there is complete chaos on the table and in the drawers (half-eaten rolls, dried-up pieces of bread). If a holiday or a birthday is celebrated at work, then after drinking, he can start pestering young male subordinates - he sits next to him and hugs him obsessively.

(Minaev also has a couple of his own wine boutiques in Moscow and St. Petersburg www.intendant.ru, www.mbgimpex.ru/bootique_spb)

Co-owner of the MBG group - RBC: "We wanted to make a wine Starbucks" Co-owner of wine importer MBG Irina Fomina on how to sell expensive wine when the ruble falls

Wine imports fell by a third last year. Irina Fomina, co-owner of the MBG group, one of the top 10 importers of wines from Italy, told how to do business when prices for your product are rising, and the purchasing power of the population is falling.

(Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

“Partners from Europe were terribly afraid that there would be an embargo”

- The depreciation of the ruble is a big blow to the business of companies that buy goods for foreign currency. Did you manage to readjust?

- We calculated scenarios, there were several of them. But, of course, no one expected that sharp turn, when the euro will cost 100 rubles, as happened on Wednesday, December 17, 2014. We breathed in and froze, but did not stop shipments for a single day. We just made decisions quickly and manually. The business is arranged in such a way that if in the HoReCa channel (hotels, restaurants, cafes. — RBC) you can raise prices quite quickly, but it is impossible to do this in network retail - it takes a lot of time to agree on new prices with networks, and under an agreement with them this can be done no more than twice a year, while no force majeure circumstances play a role. Of course, we could stop shipments in this situation, but we limited ourselves to eliminating a few positions. We were among the last to raise prices and did it very selectively - we looked at our own mark-up and analyzed what increase the market would withstand in each specific case. Because if we raised prices too sharply following the rise in the euro, this would have a negative impact on sales.

— How much did shelf prices for your wine increase on average after the collapse of the ruble?

— Changing the shelf price depends not only on us, but also on the specific chain — different retailers use different systems for calculating their own markup. Our selling prices have been raised by 20-25% on average. Retail prices for our products have increased by about 30%.

How much did sales drop after that? ​

“Sales fell 15% in bottles and 11% in cash. If we look at the segments, the sales of more expensive wines - above €2.5 in purchase - practically did not fall, which is surprising. This is a classic story of any crisis: people who drink more expensive wines cannot be "transplanted" to something else. They will buy less wine in a restaurant, they will try to look for something acceptable in a given price segment in specialized stores, where wine is usually cheaper, and drink at home. MBG has never specialized in the ultra-cheap segment, this is not our forte. When we raised prices for the cheapest items, they immediately moved into the mid-price category - and their sales, of course, collapsed. This is where we lost the most.

The average cost of an imported bottle of still wine still remains high. It is higher than that of other players on the market, including our closest competitor, Simple, at €3.35 per bottle.

- Did you deliberately go to reduce margins?

- Yes. Because our task was to keep the market share, and we kept it. And now we will expand it as much as possible. We are starting this.

— Did you seem to have a significant share of the restaurant market in Moscow?

- A couple of years ago, PricewaterhouseCoopers believed that we occupy 37% of the wine sales market in HoReCa in Moscow. Recently, such studies have not been conducted, but we are definitely one of the leaders. Especially if we talk about the so-called A- and B-class restaurants. In addition, we are successfully establishing business ties with gastronomic projects of the "new wave" - ​​for example, White Rabbit Family, we have strong long-term relationships with Arkady Novikov's group. Our ratio is as follows: about 50% - HoReCa, 30% - retail, 20% falls on wholesale deliveries to the regions.

— This is the most difficult crisis for me personally and for the company. Now the crisis is structural, and the problem is that there is the price of oil, on which we are very dependent, and sanctions against Russia, there is no access and opportunities for financial borrowing. The key rate and the high cost of money are quite problematic. We work with Sberbank, we have a good reputation, we have access to credit resources, and our rates are good by Russian standards, but very high by the standards of the rest of the world.

— What do your partners in Europe and the countries of the New World say about sanctions?

“As soon as it all started, they were very afraid that there would be an embargo on wine. They were terribly afraid. The first problem arose with the Americans: we have a very large contract with Chateau St. Michelle is a huge company, one of the world leaders. The problem arose when we almost lost the ability to buy goods on credit through American banks - and mainly because of political issues. But we still found a solution and left the brand behind. The Americans themselves helped to find a way out: we receive goods through their Baltic distributor and provide deliveries throughout Russia.

In Europe, we notice regret about what is happening, because, let's face it, sanctions, which, thank God, wine did not fall under, are generally not needed by anyone - neither we nor them. In business relations, we saw from partners only a desire to help: in terms of financing, special prices, and marketing support.

Co-owner of wine importer MBG Irina Fomina (Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC)

- That is, there were no partners who said: now 100% prepaid?

- No one has such a prepayment. Another thing is that the systems of insurance, factoring, which we used in the course of purchases, have narrowed down for us. But our partners have found alternative insurance companies with which we are still working. If factoring through third banks is not possible, then personal guarantees appeared - for example, Miguel Torres (a wine producer from Spain. — RBC).

MBG Group

MBG was founded in 1995 by Irina Fomina. According to her, the money to start the business was given to her by her husband, entrepreneur Valery Kazikaev.

Kazikaev, who worked in the structure of the Ministry of Higher and Special Education of the USSR in 1989, was one of the founders of the Moscow International Higher School of Business (MIRBIS), the first educational institution in Russia that trains specialists in the MBA program. At the time of the founding of MBG, Kazikaev was the president of the state holding Rosexportles, created to trade timber on world markets.

MBG specializes in importing premium wines. The company is in the top 10 wine importers from Italy and in the top 3 wine sellers to Moscow restaurants. MBG's portfolio includes wines from well-known world producers - Torres (Spain), Antinori (Italy), Hugel (France), Penfold`s (Australia) and others. MBG's managing partner is writer and TV presenter Sergei Minaev. Minaev created his first novel "Duhless" largely on the basis of his experience in MBG.

The company owns two wine boutiques "Intendant" in Moscow. Fomina also invests in the restaurant business - she is a co-owner of the Cantinetta Antinori restaurant (with Arkady Novikov) and the Khleb i Vino chain (five restaurants in Moscow). In addition, Fomina imports cosmetics and owns the Yu'Beauty beauty clinic.

According to SPARK, in 2014, the total revenue of the wine trading companies MB Group Impex and Millennium (part of the MBG group) amounted to 4.85 billion rubles, net profit - 109.5 million rubles.

“Calling wine alcohol is a global mistake”

— The rise in the price of imported wine has led to an increase in production in Russia. Did you feel it?

— Let's be honest when we talk about Russian winemaking. Most of the wine materials are not your own? Not own. The bottles are often not their own, the equipment is imported at the factory. That is, the dependence on the import component in the price of a bottle is huge. For the powerful development of Russian winemaking, there is not enough volume of its own grapes - it will take 10-15 years to saturate the market. You can control the quality of wine and its price only when you grow your own grapes, and they bring good harvests for more than one year. When you buy wine material, you depend on price fluctuations in the market, you cannot guarantee the value of a bottle.

We tried to make a large Russian wine list for ourselves, but, unfortunately, nothing worked out, because the prices of the wines that we tried to collect in this portfolio turned out to be very high. It is extremely difficult to explain to the end buyer or a guest in a restaurant why Russian wine is more expensive than the basic positions of the same Antinori, and the quality, by the way, is often inferior. It is simply impossible, they do not take it and will not take it for such money in large volumes. Our portfolio includes products of the Abrau Durso group of companies, which includes the Divnomorskoye Estate, Abrau and, soon, Vedernikov lines. Plus, we have a very interesting partner in the Crimea - Valery Zakharyin with his autochthonous wines from local, local varieties. That's all for now, but we're still looking. There are already amazing farms in Russia, there are several of them, they are owned by famous people, a lot of investments are being made in them. Over time it will be very good.

- You sell Abrau Durso wines, although this company has its own powerful distribution. Why do they need you?

“Maybe we can do something they can't. We have a well-established sales infrastructure, in particular in the HoReCa channel. A proposal for cooperation came from them.

- You add strong alcohol to the briefcase. How promising is this direction from your point of view?

“For example, I don’t consider wine to be alcohol. I believe that this is a global Russian mistake - to call wine alcohol and equate it with it. We dealt with vodka, we started distributing Gray Goose in Russia, despite the fact that I have never even tasted vodka in my life. But I really liked the Gray Goose story itself. Then, when Bacardi bought this brand (for $2.2 billion in 2004. — RBC), we continued to distribute it, and then Bacardi began to do it themselves. But initially we built this distribution. Then we had Belvedere vodka in a briefcase (owned by LVMH. — RBC). Today we have an excellent portfolio of strong alcoholic beverages - Poli grappa, Gordon & Macphail whiskey, Roger Groult Calvados and Château De Laubade Armagnac are excellent premium brands. But we do not place a particularly strong emphasis on the strong.

— When you started trading, few people in Russia understood quality wines. How did you build the business?

- I graduated from MGIMO, specialized in France. When I was in graduate school, I started working in a French company - Société commerciale de l "Ouest africain (SCOA), and my boss was a great connoisseur of wine. I traveled a lot and tried. Then I left this company, and we created MBG together with my husband Valery Kazikaev.Friends from the DP-trade company, who rented part of the office from us, began to import wine, they told me about Ruinart champagne.This was my first contract.The second was with Patrick de Ladoucette (one of the leading wine producers from the Loire Valley. — RBC), then came a contract with Pier Antinori (a leading wine producer from Tuscany. — RBC). My friend Frank Hardy, the first French sommelier in Moscow, helped me to make the first wine list for MBG. In the end, it worked out that way: my partners recommended me to other manufacturers.​

— Your partner in the wine business is the famous writer and TV presenter Sergey Minaev. How did he get into this business and is he doing real operational work?

- Sergey came to MBG from a large alcohol company William Pitters and headed our sales department, and then became a commercial director. Now he is a partner in the company, responsible for marketing and commercial activities. I remember how he brought me the manuscript "Duhless" to read. I read it and asked if it could be published under a pseudonym? In the book, a number of characters were quite recognizable - for example, from among our partners. But in the end no one was offended. Now, by the way, the shooting of a multi-part film based on his script has begun, it will be released in the fall on Channel One.

In addition to wine, you sell cosmetics. HIs it more profitable - cosmetics or wine?

— Marginality in cosmetics above. And then sales of cosmetics do not have such regulation - this is not an excise product, there is no EGAIS. By the will of fate, both of these businesses began in 1995. Sales of cosmetics are only 15% of the revenue of a wine trading company, but this is an extremely interesting part of the business for me. During the crisis, many left the Russian market, and our sales are increasing.

In a way, it's the same story as wine. I have always been engaged in a selective selection of very expensive products for which there is always a demand. There were never any advertising budgets for their promotion. These are niche products such as Valmont, 3LAB, Dr. Sebagh. In the crisis of 2008, we added a new direction - inexpensive, affordable cosmetics. Then we got a big contract with the Israeli company Yes To at that time. We have also started working with the French line of the Corine de Farme brand. All this is sold in hypermarkets and is in great demand.

- Another business of yours is the Khleb i Vino chain of wine restaurants. It is clear that for you this is one of the distribution channels ...

— We wanted to make such a wine Starbucks. Since we transport wine, we have the opportunity to give fair prices for it, and, of course, we have created platforms where we can see how people react to this or that position – this is very important for us. As a result, we got affordable wine bars with a free atmosphere - this turned out to be the key to success. Plus, we have tastings and theme nights there: the educational part is also important.

— The state decided to legalize the Internet trade in alcoholic beverages. In the West, online wine and spirits trading is quite a big business. But how big a story can this be for Russia?

— Many years ago, when Internet trading was still not prohibited, we had the first online store called alcocity.ru. But then the Internet was not very developed, although we sold very well. Until the law on legalization is passed, this whole situation was in limbo, and I would not be so optimistic about the prospects. There is probably a fairly strong lobby that is against it. It's like with advertising: wine cannot be advertised, and this is also somewhat strange.​

ELLE In general, does the fact that you are a woman help or hinder you in the wine business?

I.F. It seems to me that everything here is exactly the same as in any other business. Women can do a good job because they are more patient than men, most of them have better intuition. But I am against situations in which female emotions begin to dominate.

ELLE Do your loved ones share your love for work and wine?

I.F. My husband is my partner in the company, although he is not in the operating business. Our son is 23 years old, and he understands very well what I do: he literally grew up in it. Unfortunately, the work leaves little free time, but I try to have time to give my love not only to my work, but also to those close to me. In addition to the wine business, I have a company that distributes cosmetics, a beauty clinic, a small beauty institute ... We also have two Quartermaster stores, and one of them is the oldest wine boutique on Kutuzovsky, from which it all began. I also have personal projects: for example, the Cantinetta Antinori restaurant, we opened it together with Arkady Novikov. The latest joint project of MBG and partners is the Bread and Wine network. I just love her! A very promising story, almost a wine Starbucks. This is a place where people can not be ashamed that they don't know something about wine, but just come here, choose a bottle and order food that is perfect for their drink.

ELLE You didn't want to take up winemaking yourself?

I.F. I was visited by such ideas, but they were not implemented, which I do not regret: you still need to do what you can do. We still have a company that is one of the best brand builders on the market. I simply wouldn’t have enough for my own winery.

Champagne is an amazing drink that is always good

ELLE Is there a fashion for certain wines?

I.F. Can we say that the wines of the southwest of France, Austria and Germany have become very popular now? Yes and no. It's just that now the wines of these countries are represented more widely than before, and many have appreciated their pleasant value for money. Old World wines are out of fashion, but somewhat overpriced, making great wines unaffordable to most. But good wine doesn't have to be expensive!

ELLE Where should you go to taste a drink in its homeland?

I.F. Many wines in Moscow take on a completely different taste, so if you are a connoisseur, enotourism will bring many discoveries and even revelations. In France, I really like the Loire Valley and Burgundy, especially when paired with local food. In Italy - Tuscany, Sicily and Sardinia. To try excellent Rieslings, feel free to go to Austria and Germany. Spain is an absolutely stunning country in terms of wine and food tourism. And, of course, you need to visit Champagne. Although champagne is such an amazing drink that is appropriate and good everywhere, not only at home.

Irina Fomina can be called the first lady of the wine business in Russia - her company MBG, one of the leaders in the Russian market, is over 20 years old! She influenced how many people in our country learned to understand wine and discover the most interesting grape varieties, and we have never met a better adviser for traveling through the vineyards and cellars of the world. Still arrogantly think that wine is not a woman's job? We are sure that a frank interview with a successful and beautiful business woman about the intricacies and flavors of the profession will convince you of the opposite.

ELLE Irina, is alcohol in fashion now or is everyone so carried away by a healthy lifestyle that it is losing ground?

IRINA FOMINA I will express my opinion, which is shared by many professionals. For me, alcohol and wine are not synonymous. Alcohol is a strong drink, wine belongs to a slightly different category. I do wine. And it is definitely on trend. Moreover, if we talk about Russia, then in recent years, many people have abandoned strong drinks in favor of wines - and light ones at that.

ELLE You have been running the business for over 20 years. How has the culture of wine consumption changed during this time?

I.F. Of course, we are making great progress. Previously, people practically did not know wine and perceived it incorrectly. Now we understand it much better, and this is facilitated by a remarkable feature of Russians - quickness of mind and thirst for knowledge. We travel a lot, discovering new wines. People deliberately go to wineries for tastings. At the dawn of my career, clients bought the noblest Bordeaux in boxes and drank it almost with a herring! Now people still understand that a great wine must have an appropriate accompaniment. And not only great: any wine with the wrong food can simply be killed. For example, contrary to popular belief, champagne does not go well with chocolate. A win-win company for wine at professional tastings is bread.

People bought noble Bordeaux in boxes and drank it almost with herring

ELLE How did it happen that you got involved in wine?

I.F. I am an economist by education, I graduated from the Faculty of International Economic Relations of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. In graduate school, I started working in a joint Russian-French company, and my boss was a great connoisseur and lover of wines. In addition, I lived in Paris for several months, traveled around the country from time to time, gradually discovered wine for myself and eventually wanted to try myself in this business. I didn’t study anywhere specifically, I just went to tastings, read a lot ... And it should be noted that I had very good mentors. For example, Frank Hardy, my old Parisian friend, taught me a lot. It was the first French sommelier in Russia. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the range of the company was created thanks to him.

ELLE There is a story behind the creation of almost every wine. You probably know a million of them. Do you have a favorite?

I.F. Let me tell you one that I was a part of. I have been working and friends with the Antinori family for a long time, they have been making wine for more than 600 years. And one of the representatives of this dynasty, Lodovico Antinori, is a truly legendary person, a great esthete and a very emotional person. And then one day he sold the Ornellaia and Masseto vineyards that made him famous and founded a new enterprise with his brother Piero in Bizerno. He released one wonderful wine, then another ... But he constantly told me: “Irina, give me time, and I will create a great drink!” After five years of work, he came to me in Sardinia, where I spent the summer, with a bottle of his new wine, which he called Alpha. It seemed to me that he chose the wrong name; Lodovico began to explain something to me, we argued for a long time ... And in the end he asked me: “And what do you suggest I call him?” I replied: “Name after yourself!” So in the end it happened.

About company

It all started in 1995, when one of the first wine boutiques in Russia called Quartermaster opened on Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow, offering its customers the best wines and spirits from the main wine-growing regions of the world for 20 years. It was from the boutique "Intendant", the name of which was given by the oldest wine store in Bordeaux "L'INTENDANT", that the history of the MBG company began.

20 years for the history of modern Russia is a whole era. The era of active formation and development of business. The time when restaurant and club businesses, retail trade and distribution were actively developing in the country. The MBG company quickly responded to the needs of the market, over the years having gone from a small wine boutique to a professional trading company, one of the three leading importers of alcoholic beverages.

MBG continues to develop actively, offering its customers more and more new alcohol brands, expanding its participation in off-trade and on-trade markets and increasing regional distribution. In addition, quite recently, a second boutique called Quartermaster opened on Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow.

The MBG portfolio includes the widest selection of wines from the Old and New Worlds, as well as spirits. MBG supplies the Russian market with such legendary brands as Laurent-Perrier champagne, Antinori, Livio Felluga, Allegrini wines, Gordon & Macphail whiskey, Chateau de Laubade Armagnac and other worthy brands.

Throughout the years of the company's existence, Irina Fomina has remained the chairman of the board of directors.