Decentralization of management saved regional assets - co-founder of the Foxtrot group Gennadii Vykhodtsev (updated)

Exclusive interview of the co-founder of the Foxtrot group Gennadii Vykhodtsev to the Interfax-Ukraine agency on the state of assets, losses, millions of investments in restoration and further vision for the development of business projects

(Updated: clarified number and wording in third paragraph)

Text: Oksana Grishina, Iegor Boltryk

Before we start talking about business, tell us, what was the first day of the war like for you?

Neither that day, nor during the next year, I thought about leaving Ukraine, although I have the right to do so due to my age. And on February 24, my partner Valerii Makovetsky decided to return to Kyiv, and we, as they say, coordinated the first decisions with the team on how to work "Foxtrot" in wartime. A month before the start of a full-scale invasion, Foxtrot managers provided the Supervisory Board with a plan of action in case of an emergency, but no one believed that it would be needed to the end.

What are the first steps in the business to minimize losses?

Even before the war, the evacuation of material assets from the frontline regions to the west of Ukraine began, the supply of goods to Foxtrot stores in the east and south of the country was limited, which reduced the losses that the war later brought. We discussed the dispositions of the management team and the possible relocation of the central office. Prescribed the safety rules for those stores that could work because of the distance from the hostilities. But the war is a force majeure, and we could not foresee the loss of the central warehouse in Gostomel in March 2022. This was the first blow that the business experienced very painfully. Back in 1994, when we were building Foxtrot, I was engaged in logistics tasks,