What: A second bankruptcy auction for Odesa's Central Department Store building is set for 15 October, with the National Bank of Ukraine as mortgagee and the property's management and lease agreements lapsed since 2024.

Why it is important: When a department store building is sold through insolvency, the creditor holding the collateral and the unresolved tenancy arrangements shape the outcome more than the retail business operating inside it.

The non-residential complex at 72 Italiiska Street in central Odesa, which houses the city's Central Department Store, returns to auction on 15 October as part of the bankruptcy of Ukrbudspetstekh LLC. The starting price remains 399,441,000 hryvnias excluding VAT, roughly 32,000 hryvnias per square meter for 12,477.8 square meters, after the first auction on 20 August drew no participants. The three-round English auction requires a bid bond of 10% of the starting price.

The sale is run by the bankruptcy administrator, not the city. The National Bank of Ukraine, which commissioned the November 2025 appraisal, is the mortgagee: the property secures a 2009 refinancing loan to Imexbank, the bank formerly owned by ex-MP Leonid Klimov, who is also the ultimate beneficiary of Ukrbudspetstekh.

Only the 1959 main building, used as retail and warehouse space, still exists; the other structures listed in the title documents do not. The auction file also flags a tenancy anomaly: the ten-year management agreement with Nova-Khvylia LLC expired in December 2024 without extension, taking with it the linked lease to Business Management Group LLC, yet the management agreement remains registered with the tax authorities until 2034, for record-keeping purposes only.

IADS Notes: The relisting follows a first auction that was cancelled on 20 August when no bidder came forward at the same starting price of 399.4 million hryvnias (Intent Press, August 2026), and the lot now returns with no price reduction. Other property transactions have also turned on the split between a department store building and the business operating inside it: in Paris, Banque des Territoires withdrew from negotiations to acquire the BHV Marais real estate, while SGM, which runs the store, maintained that the property project would proceed with other partners (Fashion Network, October 2025). In distressed cases, creditor priority has repeatedly determined the outcome. Harvey Nichols' unsecured creditors are expected to recover between less than 1% and 20% of their claims after a sale of just over £43 million, with secured creditors paid first (Fashion Network, September 2026). At Saks Global, an ad hoc group of lenders led by distressed debt funds is positioned to take control after a lender-led reorganisation that closed most Saks Off 5th stores and about half of the Saks Fifth Avenue chain (WWD, April 2026). The Odesa case follows the same pattern: the National Bank of Ukraine holds the mortgage, and a bankruptcy administrator conducts the sale, not a retailer.

Odesa's Central Department Store building relisted for auction at 399 million hryvnias