News of Mere’s arrival to Hungary spread last year. The company, which boasts extremely low prices, was founded by Sergey Schneider and his brother Andrey and father Ivan—all of whom are on Ukraine’s sanctions list as security threats.

The chain, known as Svetofor in Russia, has expanded over recent years primarily in Serbia and Eastern Europe. Since the outbreak of the war, they have opened at least 50 new stores abroad, some under the Mere brand and others under the name ‘MyPrice’.

The first Svetofor store opened in 2009 in an industrial area on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Its business model was based on targeting people close to or at a subsistence level. The store achieves low prices by selling goods directly from pallets, employing very little staff, locating their stores in suburban areas where rental costs are low, paying landlords only 1 to 2 percent of sales, and negotiating aggressively with suppliers.

According to an article in The Bell, the Schneider family has been in the retail business for nearly 30 years and has not given a single interview in recent years. Despite actively expanding in Europe, the company does not even have a website.

There are hardly any photos of Sergey Schneider, and the elusive Russian billionaire’s name has only recently appeared in the press due to a discovery in the French company registry listing a residential address in Budapest’s 7th district. The same address is listed for Anna Schneider, a co-owner of Torgretail CZ, which operates Mere’s Czech stores. Her exact relationship to the Schneider brothers is unknown.

Hungarian Connections

Enter Zsigmond Farkas, the managing director of the Hungarian company Hungarétel Kft., which is owned by Belgrade-based company HUNProdukt DOO Beograd—one of Mere’s Serbian entities. This company has multiple owners: Sergey Schneider, Andrey Schneider, Andrey Veikulainen, and Valery Yakovlev.

Hung Trade DOO Beograd owns TS Retail Kft., another Hungarian company linked to Mere. Meanwhile, Huntorg Service Kft. is owned by another Serbian company, SKTrade DOO Beograd, which also lists Andrey Schneider, Sergey Schneider, Valery Yakovlev, Andrey Veikulainen, and Yevgeny Pshenichin as owners. Mere founder Sergey Schneider appears as a shareholder with varying ownership stakes across all the Serbian companies.

In December 2024, Zsigmond Farkas established a new company called Family Markets Hungary Kft., where he has three Serbian co-owners. The company’s main activity is listed as the retail sale of food and mixed goods.

The Serbian companies are not incidental in this story: the Russia-originated Mere operates numerous stores in Serbia, and it appears they hope to introduce a similar model in Hungary, where different regional companies handle procurement separately.

TS Retail would cover the Budapest area, Hungarétel Kft. would serve the Debrecen-Miskolc-Nyíregyháza region, and Huntorg would cover Western Hungary.

Procurement teams in these separate companies began negotiations with suppliers independently, leading to unexpected issues – like suppliers not understanding why they had to negotiate separately for different parts of the same chain.

The Russian business model has struggled in Hungary, particularly because the deposit-shy tenants have had difficulty securing any rental properties, although HVG recently found a registered Mere store location in Nyíregyháza listed in the National Trade Registry.

Internal Turmoil

In early January, Hungarétel’s managing director Zsigmond Farkas called a meeting with his employees. A recording obtained by Atlatszo reporters suggests he was preparing for large-scale layoffs. During the meeting, Farkas apologetically revealed that he had only learned on the evening of December 30 that he would have to fire a large number of his employees.

Workers were particularly upset by the lack of a notice period, as many had fixed-term contracts that are difficult to terminate early. Some warned that the company could face legal consequences, potentially leading to liquidation.

Farkas responded bluntly: “There is nothing in this company. If they liquidate it, they liquidate it. If there were a store, things would be different.”

The conversation also revealed that the company intended to cancel its office lease and mobile subscriptions. Farkas, describing himself as merely a messenger of sorts, attempted to respond constructively to employee concerns, but he admitted that he had no information about the company’s future.

At one point, the discussion turned to the plázastop – a regulation limiting the construction of large retail spaces – which requires stores over 400 square meters to be approved in Hajdú-Bihar County. Farkas remarked, “It’s all politics – but I can actually help with that.” Someone responded: “That’s why we thought this would go smoothly for us.” Farkas’ sorry reply: “Yes, yes, but we didn’t get that far.”

When contacted for comment, Farkas Zsigmond stated:

“The owners of Hungarétel Kft. make business decisions based on economic factors, which are considered trade secrets. I cannot comment on these matters. Furthermore, anything I did not personally state—including what you have written—cannot be published, and you must not engage in speculation. Publishing assumptions will have legal consequences. You will be informed about our first store opening when we announce it to the press.”

Farkas Everywhere

Zsigmond Farkas first appeared in the Hungarian media in 2015 as a silent partner in a limited partnership that won a government contract under suspicious circumstances for providing training programs. In 2012, a company he was involved in had already secured HUF 48 million in funding for a health tourism experience center—which, oddly, journalists were unable to locate at the company’s registered address.

In 2021, it was revealed that Zsolt Obrusánszki – Antal Rogán’s third wife’s father –and several other family members, Farkas Zsigmond, and another private individual had purchased 1,022 hectares of land. They brought HUF 83 million in capital to the table, with the remaining HUF 1.6 billion to be financed by Budapest Bank.

The deal ultimately fell through. After media reports surfaced, Antal Rogán stated: “My wife did not receive a loan from a state bank, and no land was transferred into her ownership. Moreover, she does not intend to become a landowner in the future.”

In 2011, Ibolya Hernáczki founded Ductus Kft., a company that Zsolt Obruszánszki and Zsigmond Farkas joined in 2020. The company, specializing in education and consulting, secured a HUF 315 million loan from Budapest Bank by pledging business shares worth HUF 750,000 each as collateral.

Previously, Ductus Kft. won HUF 2.23 billion in state funding under the EU-financed Rural Development Program for agricultural consultancy. In 2024, both Obruszánszki and Farkas exited the company.

Before anyone gets worried, however, fear not – Farkas appears omnipresent.

He claims to have been involved in agriculture for a long time. In 2023, he purchased 134 hectares of land, financing the acquisition with a bank loan. According to the contract, approximately 80% of the HUF 222 million purchase price was covered by a loan from MKB Bank Nyrt.

Farkas also ventured into the film industry – for a time, he co-owned Közép Európai Filmiroda Kft., once again alongside Zsolt Obrusánszki.

This company is producing the film 1242 – Gateway to the West, which received HUF 2.5 billion in funding from the National Film Office.

Don’t line up for tickets just yet – the much-publicized historical film has still not been released, and the only information thus far is based on vague industry rumours about post-production. The current owner of the company is Dóra Farkas, Zsigmond Farkas’s wife.

No doubt, with all this money, the movie will provide high-quality cinematic entertainment that the whole family can enjoy.

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