Finnish tire maker Nokian Renkaat’s 25% plunge on the stock market answers the question of which European company is most exposed to sanctions, this time severe, against Russia.
Finland’s Nokian Renkaat, one of Russia’s biggest exporters, plunges into the stock market | Photo credits: Nokian Renkaat
The biggest exporter of consumer goods in Russia is Finnish. This is the tire manufacturer Nokian Renkaat, which plunged 25% on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (-50% since the start of the year), thus signing the largest fall in the Stoxx 600 index of large stocks. Europeans.
From its plant in Vsevolozhsk, near Saint Petersburg, the company supplies thirty-five countries around the world. It derives two-thirds of its revenue from the sale of tires for passenger cars (the rest of the business addresses the markets for tractors, trucks, construction machinery, buses and military armored vehicles), which are manufactured in 80% in Russia. Nearly 70% of production is exported.
The exclusion of most Russian banks from the Swift system will affect marketing. The collapse of the ruble, to an all-time low, is another “great uncertainties” which led Nokian Renkaat to abandon its financial targets for 2022 today, only twenty days after having communicated them, on February 8, when the group published its 2021 accounts.
Before the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and the Western economic counter-offensive, Nokian Renkaat expected an increase this year “meaningful” sales and operating profit, at comparable currencies. The Swedish company, which is studying ways to increase its production capacity from its Finnish and American factories, has already been working since last week to get its stocks out of Russia.
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