On 17 September decree No. 661 put 16 Russian legal entities belonging to Auchan, Nestlé, FM Logistic and the former Leroy Merlin under the “temporary management” of AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT”. Three days ago we wrote that everything publicly known about that company came from the media, and that we had checked none of it against the corporate register. Today we did. Two extracts from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (EGRUL), generated on 21 September on the Federal Tax Service’s website and signed with its qualified electronic signature, show three things the decree does not: the manager’s filing history includes a Tax Service entry of 16 January 2026 stating that information about the company is unreliable; its current general director was registered on 10 September — seven days before the decree; and, as of 21 September, Auchan’s registered owners are the same French and Dutch companies as before the decree, with no entry of any kind after 17 September.
The manager’s seven pages
The extract for AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT” runs to seven pages. It was registered on 16 October 2024: Vedomosti had it right, while Novaya Gazeta Europe’s date — the end of 2025 — does not match the register. The charter capital is 15,000 roubles, as Vedomosti reported. Its principal registered activity is 70.22, “consulting on commercial activity and management”; the additional activities are investment in securities and charter capital, and the purchase, sale and letting of its own real estate.
In just under two years the company has accumulated eight register entries, three of them in 2026. The sixth, dated 16 January 2026, records the result of the Tax Service’s own check:
“Entry in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities stating that information about the legal entity is unreliable (results of a check of the reliability of information about the legal entity contained in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities).”
The extract does not say what exactly the Tax Service found unreliable: the form records the finding and the entry number, not the subject of the check. The seventh entry, dated 3 March 2026, changes the company’s address to premises on 2nd Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street in Moscow. The eighth, dated 10 September 2026, registers the current general director, Andrey Krayushkin. Decree No. 661, which hands this company the management of sixteen legal entities, was signed on 17 September, seven days after that entry. The extract establishes the sequence of dates. It says nothing about how the decision was made.
There are no shareholders in the extract: EGRUL does not keep shareholder lists for joint-stock companies. It names only the shareholder registrar, AO “REESTR”. The public register does not reveal who owns the manager.
Auchan’s 118 pages
The extract for OOO “AUCHAN” runs to 118 pages and contains 342 entries, from its registration in 2002 to today. The charter capital is 16,772,051,074.08 roubles. It has two members: France’s SOGEPAR with 99.99858 per cent and the Netherlands’ Meelacker B.V. with 0.00142 per cent — the same two names and the same stakes, to the fifth decimal place, that decree No. 661 placed under management.
The last entry is dated 15 September 2026, two days before the decree, and concerns a licensing authority’s notice that a licence had been reissued. There is not a single entry after 17 September: none about a change of owner, none about a manager, none about a director. The registered general director remains Aysylu Balabay, entered on 11 September 2025. All of Auchan’s entries for 2026 concern licences except one: updated activity codes received from Rosstat in May.
What this shows, and what it does not
Temporary management under decree No. 302 does not transfer ownership — we established that three days ago from the decree’s own text. The register now shows the same thing: Auchan’s stakes remain registered to SOGEPAR and Meelacker B.V., exactly as before 17 September. A sale that brings money to the Treasury — the mechanism we described in the sale of federally owned stakes in 28 companies — starts with property in federal ownership. No federal ownership has arisen here: the register still shows the foreign owners. The state has acquired control of Auchan’s cash, not a source of budget revenue.
The other half of the picture is who controls that cash. The register answers: a company with charter capital of 15,000 roubles, a registered “consulting” profile, a Tax Service entry saying that information about it is unreliable, and a general director registered seven days before the decree. Each statement now rests on a Tax Service-signed extract, not a media account.
What this changes in our model
Nothing today — for the same reasons as three days ago. Asset transfers are not one of our eight indicators, and neither the decree nor the extracts name any sum.
If this channel ever brings money into the budget, it will show in the budget deficit — 65 out of 100, with the rolling twelve-month deficit at 3.3% of GDP. The strength index stands at 47.3 out of 100, in the stress zone. Overdue receivables remain the weakest of the eight indicators at 9; oil and gas budget revenues are the second weakest at 14. No indicator moved in today’s data update. The live state of all eight is on the monitor.
What we do not know
Who owns AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT”. The shareholder list is kept by AO “REESTR”, and there is no public access to it. The extract does not answer that question.
What exactly the Tax Service found unreliable, and whether it was fixed. The 16 January entry records the result of a check, not its subject. The address change of 3 March may be a response to it or may not: the extract contains no entry lifting the mark, and we assert neither.
Whether a temporary manager is supposed to appear in Auchan's register at all. The absence of an entry after 17 September is a fact about the register as of 21 September, not evidence that the decree is not being implemented. An entry may yet appear; we did not check the procedure or deadlines for making one.
The manager’s financial statements for 2025. The state financial-statements database serves only an application shell, and we could not obtain the company’s report. We therefore say nothing about whether it did any business.