2023-07-23 15:28:57
With the example of Danone y Carlsberg in most recent memory, the companies that didn’t get off the Russian ship in 2022 face the possibility of being the next to be nationalized. This is stated by experts cited by The Moscow Times, who point out that there is widespread uneasiness among business circles about this maneuver. According to local media, the expropriated assets They rise in value up to one billion euros.
Both the French food company and the Danish brewer – which owned most of Baltika, the largest Russian beer brand – had publicly announced that they intended to leave the Eurasian country. Nigel Gould-Davies, expert on Russia and Eurasia for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Russian media that “the second time something is done, it suggests it won’t be a one-time thing, so everyone should worry now.” In this round of expropriations, the Russian regime has rewarded like-minded people. Taimuraz Bolloev, a personal friend of Vladimir Putin for many years, will receive the assets of Danone’s Russian subsidiary, while Yakub Zakriev, the nephew of Chechen Governor Ramzan Kadirov, will be the new owner of the Carlsberg assets.
Obstacles to those who change their minds
they are not the only ones companies that feel uncomfortable in Russia due to legal uncertainty and the problems when making payments between subsidiaries, due to the Swift system Eurasian country blockade. Previously, Russia already kept assets from companies such as Ikea, McDonalds, Ford or the bank Home Credit, all of them chose to leave and therefore lost these resources. Russia has discouraged the repetition of these measures by having already set these precedents, in addition to the decree signed by the Russian president. Vladimir Putin in August 2022, which prohibited foreign companies from selling or transferring the assets of companies operating in the energy and financial sectors, which can only leave with the express consent of the Russian president himself.
In December it was established that companies leaving the country could not sell anything for less than 50% of its market value. In addition, in March 2023, the requirements became stricter and included the obligation to compensate the Russian state monetarily. These measures have been the Russian response to the freezing of the Russian assets of Russian individuals and companies in Western countries, in addition to becoming a veritable obstacle course for those who now want to leave the Eurasian country.
This current of expropriations has even targeted large conglomerates in Russia, such as Yandexthe Russian internet giant, the bank Tinkoff and the telecommunications company Pennantcom. Some big names that despite the difficulties and the potential threat of expropriations se maintained in the country are Leroy Merlin, Pepsi, Alcampo, L’Oreal, Nestlé, among other 2,600 large companies. Some of them have temporarily stopped their activity or their investment.
The ones that have already been downloaded
Some Western companies rushed to leave the Russian market as soon as they could. Big names known around the world like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Apple, Audi, Mastercard, among many others took this measure. Although some of them lost business opportunities and in some cases active, many of them avoided the most severe measures against which they leave.
However, the fact that they have officially left the country does not mean that their products are not available to the Russians. The sale through third countries, authorized by the Russian authorities, has become a legal bootleg luck which implies that as long as it was originally purchased legally, a brand’s products can be sold in Russia without its express consent. Although this piracy has already been abandoned, something like this was also seen in theaters, where you could see bootleg movie screenings that they were not going to go to the Russian market.
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