Secretive Russian billionaire Sergey Shnayder uses Budapest address in official documents

Sergey Shnayder, the founder and owner of the Russian discount chain Mere, is registered as living in an apartment in Budapest's 7th district, Telex has learned. The elusive billionaire has been using this address for years, but as far as we know, he does not actually live in the apartment.

Mere made the news in Hungary last spring when it was revealed that the retail chain, which launched from Siberia and charges 20 to 30 percent lower prices than Lidl and Aldi, was preparing to expand into the Hungarian market. For several months after the news broke, it was unclear whether they would ever launch their business in Hungary, but, as we recently reported, they faced several setbacks.

One of the most interesting parts of the Mere story is its founder. Sergey Shnayder tried his hand at a variety of businesses after the regime change in Russia, and eventually founded his discount chain in Siberia in the 2000s under the name Svetofor. Since then, they have opened more than 2,000 stores and according to Forbes' estimate, Shnayder's personal fortune is $1.4 billion, or about HUF 540 billion.

Despite his vast wealth, almost nothing is known about Shnayder. The Russian press describes him as a reclusive billionaire. He has never given an interview to a single newspaper, and not a single picture of him is available on the internet. There has also been no substantial information about which country he lives in and whether he is actively involved in the management of his companies or in preparing the expansion of the group.

However, there is some information about Shnayder's close relatives: his brother Andrey Shnayder is one of the co-owners of the Mere companies. In their Hungarian companies, for example, Sergey has a 60-80 percent stake and Andrey a 10-20 percent stake. There is also a family member called A. Shnayder, who is also a co-owner in some of the companies.

Registered at a Budapest address

As Telex has recently learned, Shnayder has for several years used a Budapest address when signing international contracts and documents. The address is that of a third-floor apartment in an apartment building in Budapest's 7th district, known as Erzsébetváros. This is also the address listed in the founding document of Mere's company in France.

According to the 2023 document, Sergey's brother Andrey is using a Maltese address. The below document was signed by both of them, which means that they confirmed that these are indeed their addresses. The owner of Mere's company in the Czech Republic, Torgretail CZ, is A. Shnayder, who is also registered at the 7th district property, according to the Czech company register.

This is confirmed by the fact that, according to the Polish company registry, Sergey Shnayder is a citizen of Grenada, a member of the Lesser Antilles in Central America, but resides in Hungary. Based on this, the Polish press has consistently described him as a person subject to taxation in Hungary, and according to the Polish company registry, he also has a residence permit in Hungary.

It's unlikely that they live here

We visited the building where – according to the documents – Sergey and A. Shnayder supposedly live. There is an ornate, turn-of-the-century apartment building at the address, with a row of safes with Airbnb apartment keys lined up at the entrance. While there could be a particularly large and elegant street-view apartment on the third floor of the building, it doesn't exactly look like a place a billionaire would live in. The name Shnayder (or Schneider) is not marked on the buzzer next to the apartment number listed as their address.

According to the property's title deed, it's a 47-square-metre, one-bedroom apartment which has been owned by a Moscow-born Russian man since 2012. We asked both Shnayder and the owner of the apartment who was living there and, if it's not the Shnayders, then why they were using this address, but none of our questions were answered.

According to leaked Russian databases, the Shnayders own a luxury apartment in Moscow and a bigger dacha near the city. Also according to leaked data, A. Shnayder was definitely in Russia in 2019 and 2023, and registered at their luxury apartment in Moscow in 2024.

We have found documents that show that in early 2022, before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, two companies in which Sergey Shnayder and Andrey Shnayder were co-owners were registered in Hungary. The companies have since been forced into liquidation, but it is interesting that in both of these documents they listed an address in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk as their residence.

The Shnayder brothers were placed on Ukraine's sanctions list in late 2021 over Mere's expansion in Ukraine. It is therefore quite likely that they started using European addresses after the outbreak of the war in order to avoid the possible consequences of sanctions.

A source has informed us that Sergey Shnayder has been visiting Budapest regularly in recent years, and was most recently here in January and February, when he held talks with local leaders about opening Mere stores in Hungary.