Sber will make Merlion its distributor

Sber and Merlion, one of Russia's largest IT distributors and wholesalers of electronics, have announced a strategic partnership. The co-owners of the company that owns the Positronics chain of stores, the Citilink online store and the iRU computer manufacturer are now under arrest.

The bank's release states that negotiations have been going on for a long time and now "Merlion's capabilities will be integrated into Sber's emerging e-commerce industry." Distribution of Sber ecosystem products will be established through Merlion channels.

Three co-owners of Merlion - Oleg Karchev, Vladislav Mangutov and Alexei Abramov - were detained in October and are now under arrest until February 6. Initially, it was reported that they were accused of intentional destruction of property, resulting in the death of a person, and murder committed by a group of persons in a generally dangerous way by prior conspiracy.

Later, Kommersant found out that the case was based on the testimony of a participant in the hostilities in eastern Ukraine and did not include a murder. According to the publication, if the criminal prosecution continues, the company may not only have serious problems, but also change shareholders.

• At the end of November, the first deputy chairman of the board of Sberbank, Lev Khasis, said that the bank plans to enter the top 3–5 players in the e-commerce market by the end of 2023 with a total turnover of about 0.5 trillion rubles. According to him, three such attempts were not successful (one of them was a partnership with Yandex).

• After a divorce from Yandex and a failed deal with Ozon, Sberbank began negotiations with the owner of the M.Video group, Mikhail Gutseriev, on the joint development of the Goods.ru online marketplace owned by it, sources told The Bell in November. According to them, it was also a partnership with M.Video itself, but this was denied in Gutseriev's Safmar group.

• Merlion became one of the largest Russian distributors of electronics, home appliances and computers back in the second half of the 1990s. Merlion ranks 33rd in the ranking of the largest private companies in Russia with a revenue of 266 billion rubles. With revenue of 75.3 billion rubles (only 5 billion less than that of Ozon), the Citilink online store ranks 8th in the Forbes ranking of “10 Top Runet Sellers”.