Pekkaniska’s subsidiary continues to operate in Russia, although the company has been trying to exit the neighboring country’s market since April last year.
Pekkaniska, which rents personal lifts and cranes, played a significant role in the Russian market for almost 30 years. Even the word “pekaniska” (with one letter k) appeared in the Russian language, which refers to different types of cranes.
‘s St. Petersburg reader noticed that Pekkaniska’s recognizable red cranes are still in use in St. Petersburg, but their logos have been removed.
When you enter the phone number displayed on the cranes into the Russian Yandex search engine, you get Pekkaniska Russia as a search result. However, all Pekkaniska Russia social media accounts are either deleted (you switch to another service) or renamed (you move to another service).
Today, the name of the subsidiary’s website is just that Avtokran Arenda (you switch to another service), without the mention “Pekkaniska Russia” that was previously on the page. The Russian subsidiary Avtokran Arenda was founded in the early 1990s.
The pages of Pekkaniska and Avtokra Arenda look mistakenly similar, with one exception – it is difficult to find references to the Finnish company in the Russian version. The Pekkaniska logo has been removed from all images.
However, there are still references to Pekkaniska on the website: some of Avtokra Arenda’s e-mails and the official e-mail in the Russian company register still use the domain name @pekkaniska.com.
Pekkaniska’s communications manager Kristina Virtala confirmed to that the subsidiary Avtokran Arenda still operates in Russia.
– Attempts to sell the company have not yet yielded results, but the use of the “Pekkaniska” brand in Russia has been stopped because we do not want to hand over the rights to use the brand to outside parties, Virtala states.
According to him, Pekkaniska is in the middle of a difficult sales process, and at this stage the company does not want to comment on the related details in more detail.
In April last year, Pekkaniska, like many other Finnish companies, decided to leave the Russian market after the country attacked Ukraine. At that time, Pekkaniska said in his press release that there were around 4,000 units of personal lifts and crane equipment in use in Russia, which the company would not like to give up.
According to Pekkaniska, the desired end result would have been to end the use of lifting devices in Russia, move them to Finland and, as soon as the situation allows, to Ukraine.
– We would of course like to leave Russia immediately, but the immediate termination of our subsidiary’s operations in Russia would not only mean putting our staff at risk, but practically handing over our entire, for the time being, 100% Finnish-owned business and thus all our lifting equipment and other assets in Russia to Russian ownership without compensation, Pekkaniska described the situation at the time.
Leaving Russia also creates difficulties for other Finnish companies. The departure is slowed down by, among other things, large holdings in a neighboring country and obtaining sales permits from the Russian authorities.
East Office CEO Lauri Veijalainen previously told that Russia makes it difficult for Finnish companies to leave the country in many different ways.
However, Russian brands are quickly trying to replace the discontinued Finnish brands with new, similar-looking products. This happened to Paulig and Valio, for example.