Press-releases

Obuv Rossii Starts Cooperation With the Biggest Producer of Wooden Toys

15 January 2020

Novosibirsk, 15 January 2020: MDI LLC (“World of Wooden Toys»), a leader in the development and production of high-quality wooden toys for kids, and Obuv Rossii Group, the first public retailer on the Russian fashion market, have signed a cooperation agreement. At the first stage, MDI will supply about 40 thousands of items of children’s products to 700 Obuv Rossii stores. The new stock will appear in the sales outlets in January. Cooperation with Obuv Rossii will allow the producer to expand their footprint and to increase their customer audience. 

“To develop a new project of “stores as omnichannel market places”, we are building cooperation with both small and leading producers. MDI has become one of our first big partners. We are glad that a company with such experience in production and sale of toys started to cooperate with us,” says Olga Danilova, Head of Related Products Department in Obuv Rossii Group. “We already have some experience in selling children’s products. We have been developing the line of children’s textiles under the Westfalika Kids brand. Recently, we started pilot sales of stock for older kids. Our main audience is women, and we see that such products are in great demand. We are sure the customers will be interested in wares for small childs too.”

MDI is developing three own brands: Wooden toys, Bomik and The World of Wooden Toys. The products are made of eco-friendly high-quality beech wood and birch plywood. The toys are reliable and non-toxic; the paints are safe for the kids and do not harm the environment, do not fade with time. The company care for nature and pack their toys in recycled plywood (ECO-friendly.) In 2012, MDI obtained the rights for the exclusive distribution of the Lucy & Leo European brand of educational toys which are also characterized by the use of natural, organic materials.

“United efforts of the two big companies will allow us to directly provide the needed goods to our customers, to increase sales and to study the market demands in more detail. Customers can come to Obuv Rossii stores, choose some products and buy everything they need right away, especially since our positioning is the same as our partner’s one: we target the middle price segment and offer stock made of high-quality natural materials. Besides, due to the cooperation with Obuv Rossii, we will be represented in the Siberian Federal District to the maximum,” comments Alyona Almazova, Director of MDI LLC. “We think that toys have to be of high educational value for kids and, at the same time, be engaging and safe.”

 

Company profile:

Obuv Rossii (MOEX: OBUV) is a nationwide footwear company, the first publicly traded company in the Russian fashion retail. Obuv Rossii was established in 2003, it is headquartered in Novosibirsk and has a representative office in Moscow. The main Group business line is the production and sale of footwear and related goods. The Company manages 905[1] stores (172 operate as a franchise) under the brands of Westfalika (a monobrand store of classic footwear), Peshekhod ("Pedestrian") (a multibrand footwear supermarket), Rossita (a store for the whole family), Emilia Estra and Lisette (salons of fashionable footwear), in addition to developing brands of clothes and footwear for the active lifestyle brands of S-tep, All.go and Snow Guard. Furthermore, the Group also owns two manufacturing facilities in the Novosibirsk region.

In October 2017, Obuv Rossii raised 5.9 billion rubles in an IPO on the Moscow Exchange (ticker: OBUV), the issuer being OR PJSC, and in doing so became the first publicly listed company within the Russian footwear and fashion market. 

In accordance with the audited Financial Statements under the IFRS Group, revenue amounted to RUB 11.55 billion for the full year of 2018, net profit was RUB 1.33 billion, and EBITDA was RUB 2.86 billion.

In December 2019, RAEX (Expert РА) confirmed the creditworthiness rating of Obuv Rossii Group at ruBBB+ level, a "stable" forecast.

Website of the Group: www.obuvrus.ru; Internet stores: www.westfalika.ru, www.westfalika-home.ru, www.emilia-estra.ru, www.rossita.com, www.lisette.me.