(AFP / LOU BENOIST)
The agri-food giant Danone announced on Friday that it had finalized the sale of its activities in Russia, where it was established in 1992, according to a press release.
At the end of March, the French group indicated that it had obtained the Russian regulatory authorizations required to sell its subsidiary in Russia to a businessman linked to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, of which it had already lost control.
The sale of its “dairy and vegetable products” (EDP) activities to the company “Vamin R LLC” – known as Vamin Tatarstan -, a Russian dairy company owned by Mintimer Mingazov, linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, “is planned in the next few weeks,” Danone then clarified.
On Friday, the group “announced that it had completed the sale of its EDP activities in Russia to Vamin R LLC, following obtaining the required Russian regulatory authorizations”, without further details on the financial terms of the operation.
Since the offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the first economic sanctions decreed by the West, many multinationals have left Russia and others have suspended their activities there, in the oil, automobile and even manufacturing sectors. luxury.
Danone took more than seven months after the invasion to initiate the process of transferring its activities to the country, where the group, then named BSN, had been among the first multinationals to settle in August 1992, a few months after the invasion. collapse of the Soviet Union.
Danone marketed milk and yogurts there under the Danone, Danissimo and Prostokvashino brands. In 2010, the group purchased 57.5% of the number two Russian dairy products company, Unimilk (21% market share and 25 factories), with the ambition of strengthening its presence on this market. The country represented around 5% of Danone’s global turnover.