Labyrinth

History

2024: Account freeze due to debt

At the end of May 2024, it became known that the Federal Tax Service temporarily froze the accounts of subsidiaries of the Labyrinth publishing and bookselling holding due to non-fulfillment of financial obligations. The restrictions on operations in banks Sberbank and Sovcombank affected two firms: Labyrinth Service Company LLC, which manages financial and industrial groups, and Aichi Labyrinth LLC, which is engaged in software development.

These companies have faced claims from counterparties over late payments. According to the service "Kontur. Focus," the balance on the single tax account of both companies is negative. In general, seven companies filed lawsuits, including the supplier of paper products ApplikA (2.9 million rubles), publishing houses Prospekt (1.5 million rubles), Resource (272 thousand rubles), Samokat (10 million rubles), Legion (7.9 million rubles), bookstore BMM (14 million rubles), as well as the developer of software Knorus Media (2.1 million rubles).

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Фото: Unsplash

Despite the increase in revenue of the Labyrinth holding, most companies in the holding faced a decrease in revenue and an increase in losses. Labyrinth Holding is one of the largest online book stores in Russia, but it had to face competition from emerging marketplaces, including Ozon and Wildberries. Book sales at these sites increased by 31% at the end of 2023. In light of the increased problems, some book publishers, including Karo, Ivan Limbach Publishing House and Bumkniga, terminated contracts with Labyrinth. This is associated with unfavorable terms of agreements, since the holding constantly requests deferrals on payments and discounts.

At the same time, "Labyrinth" "has always been calculated under contracts with publishers, at least with small ones," said Vladimir Kharitonov, technical director of the independent publishing house Freedom Letters, in a conversation with Kommersant^[1]

Notes