Above all, do not make waves. Do not inflame a case that seems lost. Since the surprise decree, signed Sunday July 16 by Vladimir Putin, activating the temporary control of the State on all the assets of the Danone group in Russia, amazement still reigns at the French giant of dairy products. “We are in crisis management and in permanent contact with our teams on site, blows a company executive. We have no visibility.” Two days after the presidential ukase, we learned that Yakoub Zakriev, Chechen Minister of Agriculture and nephew of Ramzan Kadyrov, President of the Republic of the North Caucasus and unwavering ally of Putin, was going to take the head of the 11 Russian factories of the tricolor group (more than 7,000 employees on site). An eminently political gift to the Kadyrov clan, which sounds like a debacle for Danone.
Before the war, Russia represented almost 6% of its turnover. In April 2022, while other major French groups decided to pack up, Danone chose to stay. “A position of responsibility in relation to our thousands of employees on site”, justifies the company, which chooses an intermediate position: no new investments and the payment of local profits to the Red Cross.
A position that quickly becomes untenable. Six months later, Danone announces its intention to leave the country and find a local buyer. Officially, the company says it is having more and more difficulty running its factories, for lack of available imported raw materials. The “food safety” of its products would be at stake. But very quickly, the sale turned out to be particularly complicated. It must first be approved by the Russian administration. Then you have to find a buyer who is not subject to Western sanctions. The Rothschild bank is mandated to find the ideal candidate. “Not an investment fund, but a group in the food industry”, specifies a source close to the file. The choice falls on businessman Sergei Novikov. Close to the Russian Minister of Agriculture Dmitri Patrouchev, this oligarch comes to Paris on July 15 to finalize the sale… which will fall apart the next day, after the publication of the presidential decree. “Even within the Russian state, things are pulling in all directions, underlines this source. On this issue, the Ministries of Industry and Agriculture are not on the same wavelength.
In the meantime, the Danone affair paralyzes all foreign companies looking for a buyer to get out of the Russian quagmire. Especially since the Danish group Carlsberg is also experiencing the same misadventure. “Try to leave the country, you will see what will happen to you,” said the head of the Kremlin, in essence, to Western groups. Already, last spring, Moscow had put under guardianship two energy groups, Fortum (Finnish) and Uniper (German). “But this time, it’s about nationalization,” says Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of the Russia center at Ifri. are in power, in order to reward them.” This is, in all likelihood, what happened with Kadyrov. “Why would a potential buyer pay anything when all he has to do is pull political strings?” asks Konstantin Sonin. For this Russian economist, a professor at the University of Chicago, this predation recalls the 1990s, when former members of the Soviet nomenklatura seized entire swaths of the economy.
In fact, Vladimir Putin’s war could spawn a new generation of oligarchs, for whom Western companies that have recklessly stayed in Russia will be a feast of choice.