"Ranok" limited employee salaries after 8 million books were destroyed
Publishing corporation RNK-Ranok expects that full recovery after the Russian strike on its logistics center in Kharkiv will take at least 3-5 years. The company has already limited some expenses, is negotiating with printing houses for urgent reprinting of textbooks, and is trying to attract bank financing.
The anti-crisis plan was announced by Viktor Kruhlov, CEO of the Ranok publishing house. According to him, the recovery headquarters was assembled the day after the fire, although firefighters only fully extinguished the blaze on the seventh day.
One of the main tasks the company identified is providing Ukrainian schoolchildren with textbooks. Deliveries from preserved reserve warehouses did not stop, but some of the destroyed print runs must be reprinted.
Seven printing houses have already agreed to urgently reprint 620,000 textbooks. Ranok expects to make up for lost print runs as much as possible during September.
According to Kruhlov, the publishing house simultaneously faced funding problems, paper imports, and legal issues. He specifically drew attention to the contract terms with the Institute for Modernization of Educational Content, where, according to him, war risks are not defined as force majeure.
The company also shifted to cost-cutting. The team agreed to temporary salary limits, and owners of rented warehouses were asked to provide discounts. According to the publishing house head, most landlords agreed to support the company.
Ranok's budget after the attack was revised several times downward. The publishing house is simultaneously negotiating with banks for loans, but so far unsuccessfully.
"Future books and intellectual property rights are not interesting to banks as collateral", - said Kruhlov. In his opinion, the problem of financing the recovery of the publishing business after war losses needs to be resolved at the government level.
At the same time, the company is assessing final damages and determining the order of restoring its range. It is impossible to immediately return thousands of destroyed titles to print, so they plan to first restore the most in-demand category A books.
Another focus will be logistics restructuring. Ranok plans to further disperse book storage locations and delivery routes, despite additional costs. The publishing house also asks partners, suppliers, authors, and literary agencies for deferred payments and royalties.
Earlier, Kurs.com.ua reported that as a result of the Russian attack on Kharkiv on August 1, about 8 million books, including school textbooks, were destroyed at the RNK-Ranok logistics center. At that time, the financial consequences and the impact of losses on the supply of educational literature were not yet clear.
At the same time, all digital files and layouts of the company's books were preserved thanks to cloud backup. Kruhlov stressed that the publishing house continues to operate in Kharkiv and plans to fully restore its activities.
Based on materials: Viktor Kruhlov
