We are talking about Lim Holding, through which Gerry Weber clothes are supplied to Russia. 
The general director of Lim Holding is German citizen Markus Liemich. Before that, he was the general director of Gerry Weber Rus, which went bankrupt. Markus Limich himself often acts as either the CEO or liquidator of a company right before its bankruptcy. So in his piggy bank – not only the trade in wholesale clothing and footwear, but also companies in pension insurance, architecture and even slaughter livestock.
Now Markus Limich and Lim Holding, according to one version, having apparently decided to make money before another bankruptcy, are actually ruining their partner – the Russian company Vitality Retail. They overwhelmed the Moscow Arbitration Court with claims for almost a billion rubles.
Vitality Retail LLC opened 8 Gerry Weber stores in Russia and invested more than 20 million rubles in renovation and equipment of the premises. According to Vitality Retail, LiM Holding was unable to conclude lease agreements in the high-traffic shopping centers it was interested in. “Allocating retail space, selecting the best locations, agreeing on the terms of lease agreements – this was entirely the merit of Vitality Retail and the professionalism of the Russian team,” the company comments.
During the operation of Gerry Weber stores from September 2022 to November 2023, Vitality Retail generated sales of goods worth more than 600 million rubles. Moreover, according to LiM Holding itself, this amount was unprecedentedly high in the entire history of the brand’s work on the Russian market. It is not without reason that for a long time LiM Holding used the Vitality Retail case to demonstrate the success of its franchise and attract new franchisees.
“However, having realized that Vitality Retail is becoming a significant player in the clothing market and none of the new franchisees attracted even came close to such revenue,” says lawyer Irina Zheleznova, “and also that the concluded agreement is still valid, at a minimum, three years, during which the German partner will not be able to unilaterally change its conditions, he apparently intended to simply take away the existing business, and at the same time the beautiful renovated stores before it is necessary to carry out another renovation and transfer the stores and equipment that has not yet been depreciated to new ones franchisees, who can be given a reduced commission, citing the fact that the stores are handed over to them fully finished with finishing and equipment. “LiM Holding has already carried out similar actions with other franchisees, but these were small individual entrepreneurs and we were talking about the so-called “takeover” of one store, not a network,” adds the lawyer.
In addition, there is another version that in place of Vitality Retail they want to start a company affiliated with the former owner of the company “Michaela”, which previously sold Gerry Weber products in Russia and had problems with the tax authorities for 2.5 billion rubles, Ukrainian Olga Pletin and the former the head of the wholesale sales department of Gerry Weber Russia, Angelina Boos from Dusseldorf, who is still, they say, unofficially, but “standing at the helm” of the company, secretly overseeing the Russian sales direction. It was probably at her instigation that they decided to part with Vitality Retail.
Be that as it may, if now a German citizen and his Lim Holding somehow win the courts, he will ruin a major Russian player and leave more than five hundred employees without work.
It is strange that they have not yet become interested in the work patterns of product supplier Gerry Weber, where they should be, although former employees from the Russian representative office remain in Russia, who clearly have something to tell.
Source:https://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/bezopasnost/mashina-dlya-zarabatyvaniya-deneg-v-rossii/
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Is it true that a supplier of German clothing can drive a Russian company to bankruptcy?
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