SALE in a big way: Western brands started a big sale of business in Russia

Yekaterina Maksimova

X5 Group (operates the Pyaterochka, Perekrestok, Chizhik chains) officially announced on its website that it is acquiring 15 supermarkets and a Prisma culinary shop in St. Petersburg from the Finnish holding SOK RETAIL INT. The Federal Antimonopoly Service approved the retailer's petition.

“Supermarket operations will resume until mid-July after the completion of the necessary legal actions, minimal rebranding, and the filling of stores with X5 inventory. Almost all stores will be integrated into the Perekryostok retail chain, X5 Group said. Representatives of the Finnish holding insisted that the Russian network retain trading places for Prizma employees. This became one of the terms of the deal. Before the closure of the network (Prisma stopped working at the end of March), about 2 thousand people worked there.

For residents of St. Petersburg, "Prisma" is not just a store. It was the last "island" of neighboring, but now inaccessible Finland.

Novye Izvestia reported that retail real estate market experts predicted a new trend: the transfer of foreign business to Russians. “Moreover, everyone will act differently: some foreign companies will continue to sell all or part of the business, while others will transfer the company’s share to local management for a while,” Evgenia Khakberdieva , regional director of the retail real estate department at Knight Frank Russia, commented to Novye Izvestia .

According to one of these schemes, we recall, the stores of the French network L'Occitane came under the control of three Russians. As reported by RBC , now instead of L'Occitane International SA registered in Luxembourg, Russian L'Occitane Rus LLC is owned by its CEO Rostislav Kovalenko (31%) and top managers Natalya Milekhina, Olga Sabirova and Alexei Shumov (all 23% each) . The shares of the new owners of the company are pledged to L'Occitane International.

Polish retailer LPP Group, which managed the Reserved, Cropp, House, Mohito and Sinsay brands, had previously decided to sell its Russian division to a Chinese consortium. The listed stores began opening in Russian shopping malls in May, but have changed signage. Reserved became RE, Cropp became CR.

The big question is who will get the Coca-Cola factories and what will be possible to produce on them?

Yesterday the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company (HBC), the bottler of the Coca-Cola Co. announced that it will not produce and will stop selling Coca-Cola and other brands of the company in the Russian Federation.

Coca-Cola HBC and its customers are currently in the process of running out of inventory, Reuters reported, citing Coca-Cola Co.

In March the company announced the suspension of business in the Russian Federation, in particular, the supply of ingredients for its drinks for the Russian market.

In May, the head of Coca-Cola Co. James Quincy admitted that the company could leave Russia.

In Russia, Coca-Cola HBC owns 10 factories for the production of soft drinks and juices. In 2021, Coca-Cola HBC increased sales in Russia by 18.3%, to 373.3 million boxes (one box contains about 5.7 liters, that is, sales in Russia amounted to about 2.1 billion liters).