Danone completes sale of its assets and leaves Russia

According to Ukrinform, the group announced the completion of the sale in a press release the day before.

"Today, Danone announced that it has completed the sale of its food production business in Russia to Vamin R LLC after obtaining the necessary permits from Russian regulators," the document says, but does not provide any details.

Le Figaro has more on the details of the case

At the end of March, the French group announced that it had received the necessary approvals from Russian regulators to sell its Russian subsidiary and was close to reaching an agreement with the buyer. However, it is only now that the deal has been finalised.

"The sale of its dairy and vegetable production business to Vamin R LLC - known as Vamin Tatarstan - to a Russian dairy company owned by Mintimer Mingazov, who has ties to Ramzan Kadyrov, was scheduled for the coming weeks," the journalists write.

In March, it was said that Vamin Tatarstan was ready to pay RUB 17.7 billion. Experts noted that the real value of the assets was between 60 and 80 billion.

It took the company more than seven months after the full-scale invasion to begin the process of leaving Russia. It was only in October 2022 that it announced plans to leave the Russian market. But then President Putin signed a decree to nationalise Danone.

The state control blocked the sale process, as the owners had envisaged. The authorities appointed Yakub Zakriyev, nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and head of the republic's Ministry of Agriculture, as the new CEO of Danone.

The French company Danone is one of the largest producers of dairy products and other foods, operating in more than 140 countries. Danone entered Russia in 1992. The company's Russian assets were registered with Danone Russia JSC.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, in October 2022, Danone decided to relinquish control of its dairy business in Russia and leave the market.