The Mulliez family companies are gradually giving up on maintaining their locations in Russia. Discreetly, ELO, the holding company which oversees the distribution activities with Auchan and the real estate activities with New Immo Holding, published a press release on its website on April 5 announcing that it had sold its real estate activities in Russia. Reason given: “regular arbitrage of assets and geographic locations ”, without further detail. No mention of a context linked to the war in Ukraine.
Including the real estate company Ceetrus (formerly Immochan) and the real estate services housed in the subsidiary Nhood, New Immo Holding has “sold, on March 25, 2024, its real estate assets in Russia through the sale of its Russian subsidiary, the company Ceetrus OOO”, which operated nineteen shopping malls. Many of them house Auchan supermarkets, such as in Volgograd or Krasnogorsk.
In its 2023 financial report, New Immo Holding, which has operated in Russia and Ukraine for more than fifteen years, specified that “despite the Russian-Ukrainian conflict which started on February 24, 2022”its exposure to these two countries remained “limited”. But that “in this context of war”real estate experts were unable to successfully complete the valuation of its assets in Ukraine and Russia at the end of 2023, these two countries representing approximately 1.2% of the value of its assets, and 4.7% of net rental income of the group as of December 31, 2023. Compared to 3.6% and 6.6% respectively as of December 31, 2021.
Auchan supermarkets remain in Russia
According to the Russian media RBC, the company Trade Galleries would have become the new shareholder of Ceetrus in Russia, according to state records from April 12. Its main owner, via the entities “Kama Capital JSC and Kama Capital Management Company, is Tagir Robertovich Shaimardanov”wrote RBC on its website Sunday. Stating that at 23 years old, he “owns the companies Outlet Central and Outlet North-West”structures “created for the purchase of Hines stores in Kotelniki near Moscow and on Pulkovskoye highway in St. Petersburg”.
If the Mulliez have shed their shopping centers in Russia, they continue to operate their large food stores there. An Auchan spokesperson confirms World that“there are no plans to leave Russia”. Established since 2002, the brand operates 94 hypermarkets, 138 supermarkets, and employs 28,000 people.
Suspected on numerous occasions of contributing to the war effort in Russia, the brand has constantly repeated that it remains ” to feed the population and not let go of its collaborators.” In its annual results, published at the end of February, Auchan indicated that cumulative sales in the two warring countries fell by 4.2% in 2023 while its operating profit fell by 29%.
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