Formosa

Formoza Group of Companies is previously one of the largest Russian developers and manufacturers of computer equipment under the Formoza brand.

The company had several comparable business areas: distribution, retail stores and its own PC production (Formosa Altair).

2016: Court introduces external surveillance

On April 25, 2016, the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to introduce surveillance at the Formosa-Altair Scientific and Production Computer Center, which produced computers for the Formosa group.

2015: VTB Factoring files a bankruptcy lawsuit

In February 2015, the court sided with VTB Factoring, and in April the parties came to a settlement agreement: Formosa Altair recognized the debt. However, payments did not follow, after which in August 2015 VTB Factoring filed a bankruptcy lawsuit, follows from the materials of another case.

A bankruptcy lawsuit has been filed against the manufacturer of Formosa computers

The amount of debt in the bankruptcy lawsuit was slightly less than the original - 591.5 million rubles. The debt was partially repaid under the settlement agreement by Formosa-Altair itself and its debtors, a representative of VTB Group told Vedomosti.

Debtors were influenced by currency volatility, the Vedomosti interlocutor familiar with the participants in the process knows. Further, the financial organizations that financed these companies have zeroed in on credit limits, which is why in the summer of 2015 the debtor companies stopped working, he says.

According to SPARK-Interfax, in 2015, Bi ti Key Trading was the defendant in 17 arbitration cases totaling 2.6 billion rubles., Spectrum LLC - 424.8 million rubles^[1]

2014

Revenue of Formosa Altair 13 billion rubles, profit 567 thousand rubles

The revenue of Formosa-Altair in 2014, according to SPARK-Interfax, amounted to 13 billion rubles, which is more than a year earlier, when it received income of 11.9 billion rubles. The company's profit in 2014 amounted to 567,000 rubles.

VTB Factoring sues for debt collection

In May 2014, Formosa-Altair received financing, which had to be paid by three of its counterparties: CJSC "Bi ti key trading Ltd." (400 million rubles), Spectrum LLC (185.6 million rubles) and Corvette Trading LLC (31 million rubles). But VTB factoring did not receive this money, the case file says.

Under the factoring agreement, if the debtor does not pay, then Formosa Altair itself should do this, the court documents say. Therefore, in October 2014, VTB Factoring filed a lawsuit against Formosa Altair to collect debt.

2009: Agreement with VTB Factoring

From the materials of the lawsuit-related court case on the collection of debt from Formosa Altair in favor of VTB Factoring, it follows that in September 2009 the parties entered into a factoring agreement, under which Formosa Altair received the opportunity to finance its projects from VTB Factoring in exchange for its claims to debtors.

Management of the company in 2009:

• Kapitonov Sergey Viktorovich - President,
• Abachev Abulferz - Executive Vice President of Formosa Group of Companies
• Andrey Trufanov - Head of Sales,
• Mazaeva Alesya - Franchising and Service Program Manager,
• Druzhinin Alexander - Head of joint projects with partners.

At this time, the Scientific and Production Complex of the Formosa Group of Companies - ZAO NPCC Formosa-Altair - specializes in the production and sale of Formoza personal computers. The activities of Formoza Distribution are aimed at distributing peripheral equipment and computer components.

The production complex of Formosa Group of Companies occupies more than 25,000 square meters. m. and provides the development and production of a wide range of personal computers, servers and components for computers according to world quality standards. Production is certified according to ISO 9001/9002 standards.

Formosa Group of Companies has created and continues to develop a centralized dealer network specializing in the supply of computers, components, software and office equipment to all regions of the Russian Federation. The federal retail chain of Formoza - "Computers FORMOZA" - unites 300 stores throughout Russia.

All products of Formoza Group of Companies are provided with service support, which is sold in 140 Authorized Formoza Service Centers throughout Russia.

2008: Increase in receivables

The business of the company was hit by the crisis of 2008, which entailed problems with receivables, and then the situation in the company worsened due to the decline in the PC market.

2003

Sales estimate of $350 million

The company does not disclose financial indicators; According to estimates, in 2003 the sales of Formosa amounted to $350 million. After breaking with Intel (see below), the company buys processors (they make up about 20% of the cost of a computer) from Russian and foreign Intel distributors, and therefore loses several dollars on each PC.

Dismissal of manager Oleg Fefelov and his wife

In 2003, two key top managers were dismissed from Formosa - manager Oleg Fefelov and his wife, vice president of the company Svetlana Tulaeva. According to Formosa CEO Alexander Kupryashkin, the conflict with Intel played a role (see below), although the dismissed had many other managerial errors. This is indirectly confirmed by Nikolai Kazak, who was invited to Formosa in 2003 as a consultant on establishing business processes. He describes the state of the company's management system at that time: "Elementary things were not done." According to Kazak, the company did not have budgeting, there was no accurate management reporting.

Managers who left Formosa opened their own company that traded in PCs - Cybertronics. In the summer of 2004, Oleg Fefelov was killed (the investigation into this case has not been completed). After his death, Cybertronics was headed by Svetlana Tulaeva.

2002: Break with Intel

In 2002, Formosa came into conflict with Intel, which at that time rules the market without separation, about 85% of computers in Russia are equipped with its processors. Such popularity is a consequence of powerful marketing support: the company, unlike its competitors (AMD, for example), spends millions of dollars annually on its own advertising. Intel also has a Partner Advertising Sponsorship Program. Its essence is as follows. When selling processors to Russian collectors, Intel transfers up to 6% of the contract value to the marketing fund. After that, the collector can reimburse up to 80% of the cost of promoting his own products from the fund. If the advertising strip in the magazine costs, say, $10 000, then the computer manufacturer will be enough to pay only $2000, the rest will be contributed by the fund. Mandatory: The Intel Inside logo must appear in your PC ads.

For all its effectiveness, this program opened up opportunities for petty fraud - for example, a computer manufacturer could informally negotiate with the publication for significant discounts on advertising, and Intel, without guessing anything, spent the fund's money to the maximum, based on the price list. The additional income of the participants in the non-registered transaction could be divided among themselves.

Formosa has been a member of the Intel Inside program since 1995 and was, according to Alexei Navolokin, who led the Russian office of Intel in 2000-2003, one of the ten largest partners. But in May 2002, she was unexpectedly removed from the list of lucky ones. In addition, it lost the opportunity to buy processors on privileged terms - at partner, reduced prices.

Intel refuses to comment on the reasons for the rift with Formosa, citing a corporate ban on disclosing information about relations with partners. Representatives of computer companies that remain in Intel partners suggested that Formosa may have been caught violating agreements with the American company. For example, instead of installing processors purchased from Intel on their computers in Russia, the company could resell them in other countries. Such actions could disrupt Intel's global sales plans.

The general director of Formosa, Alexander Kupryashkin, in an interview with Forbes did not refute this version.

"No direct Intel partner is free of such claims," Kupryashkin suggested. - Intel has good security, and they have compromising power on everyone. It cannot be said that they had any special claims against us. "

Are violations of agreements really common in the market? Other Intel partners do not want to share this topic. For example, Sergey Patskevich, vice president of marketing at Marvel, one of Intel's Russian distributors, refused to answer both the question of whether his company violates the rules established by Intel and the question of whether his colleagues could have such violations.

Later in 2003, Formosa claimed that the losses from breaking up relations with Intel were "insignificant." At the same time, Formose had to get rid of non-core units - the transport division, the software development department, and the production of monitors were closed. Perhaps it would be different if the relationship with Intel did not break down.

Leader in PC sales in Russia

In 2000-2001, according to analysts at IDC, this firm was the leader in personal computer sales.

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