It was the latest move by Russia against western firms in response to a barrage of sanctions over its war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year.<\/p>\n
Most Western companies quickly sold their Russian operations and holdings after the Ukraine invasion, or at least isolated them, as sanctions have made trading in most goods difficult.<\/p>\n
Others remained, citing concerns for their employees or citizens\u2019 wellbeing, but often sharply scaled back their operations.<\/p>\n
Russia has since made it difficult for firms to leave, requiring presidential authorisation for deals, or seizing assets outright.<\/p>\n
Assets at risk<\/p>\n
Nestle said it was \u201ccommitted to taking all necessary steps to protect its rights and ensure continuity of business operations in the interests of all stakeholders, particularly its employees\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe company is assessing the situation and its options,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Nestle has six factories in Russia and employs around 7000 people, mainly for coffee, pet care, infant nutrition and confectionery products, a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Jean-Philippe Bertschy of Swiss investment bank Vontobel said he expected the financial impact to Nestle would be small \u201cgiven Russia\u2019s limited contribution to group sales\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Russia accounted for just over 1% of the group\u2019s sales, down from around 2% before the Ukraine war.<\/p>\n
It has suspended \u201cthe vast majority of sales, non-essential imports, advertising and capital investment\u201d, he said, while continuing to supply essential food items.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis practice has historically often been a precursor to a forced sale or effective expropriation of operations in the market,\u201d said analysts at the brokerage Jeffries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the case already for Danone and Carlsberg for example in 2023,\u201d they wrote, estimating that a write-off of Nestle\u2019s Russia business, including money it had not been able to repatriate, could cost the Swiss firm around one billion francs ($2.1b). <\/p>\n
Nestle shares dropped 2.6% on the Zurich stock exchange on Friday (local time).<\/p>\n
Auchan and Leroy Merlin are controlled by France\u2019s Mulliez family, which also owns the Decathlon sports retailer.<\/p>\n
Auchan\u2019s Russian subsidiary said Friday that it had requested \u201cclarifications\u201d from the authorities over Putin\u2019s decree.<\/p>\n
The French foreign and economy ministries said late Friday that France \u201ccondemns\u201d the move, and urged Moscow to go back on its decision.<\/p>\n
Auchan\u2019s subsidiary is one of Russia\u2019s main retailers, with 241 stores in the country, including 62 hypermarkets, and more than 33,000 employees according to its website.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the corresponding information has been received, we will be able to provide more detailed comments,\u201d Auchan Retail Russia told Russian news agencies.<\/p>\n
The latest seizure echoes a string of forced asset transfers, including Moscow\u2019s 2023 takeover of Danone\u2019s Russian business, which was later sold to a nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the latest move by Russia against western firms in response to a barrage of sanctions over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9092,19092,29893,1863,138,10166,6694,99524,25337,564,11775,84882,13313,28450,305,103107,102353,112116,2683,54678,111,139,69,1118,1523,52084,8105,8221,12641,29936,1886,90578,1361,1529,3461,298163,22767],"class_list":["post-604956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-against","tag-assets","tag-authorities","tag-back","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-countries","tag-defended","tag-firms","tag-food","tag-french","tag-fridays","tag-giant","tag-groups","tag-have","tag-justified","tag-kremlin","tag-measure","tag-move","tag-nestle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-over","tag-representing","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-seized","tag-seizes","tag-support","tag-swiss","tag-that","tag-three","tag-ukraine","tag-unfriendly","tag-wests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}