The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has approved the acquisition of the OBI chain of construction hypermarkets by the Hermes Group. The announcement was made on the official Telegram channel of the FAS on June 11.

Hermes Group will acquire 65% of the shares in OOO “Sdelay Svoimi Rukami”, OOO “Sdelay Svoimi Rukami Severo-Zapad”, and OOO “OBI Franchising Center,” the entities that manage the OBI chain.

Prior to this, Hermes had acquired 24.99% of the shares in April, bringing their total stake to 89.99%. Hermes is a relatively new company, registered in St. Petersburg in late March of this year. Vladimir Zakhvatoshin is identified as the beneficiary, who has been mentioned as an advisor to the heads of several defense enterprises.

Previously, there were reports of structures connected to Alexey Mordashov’s Severgroup planning to acquire a stake in the OBI chain.

German OBI GmbH had been operating in Russia since 2003, specializing in DIY products, but declared its withdrawal from Russia following the start of the SMO. After the chain’s stores closed in April 2022, Boris Lyuboshits, the founder of Audit Group consulting company and Cesar Consulting law firm, took over the management of the company’s Russian business. Later, six legal entities of its Russian OBI chain were sold, with a controlling stake (60%) going to businessman Josef Liokumovich, and 40% going to the MAX group of investment and construction companies. The stores reopened at the end of April 2022, but the ownership continued to change, and a year later, the company was transferred to Allonge JSC, which is associated with the Syndica group.

OBI remains a significant player in the Russian DIY retail market, operating 26 stores. Infoline estimates rank the company eighth among specialized chains. In 2024, the chain’s revenue reached 24.6 billion rubles, a 4.2% increase compared to the previous year.