The agreement to sell the Russian assets of the German company Henkel was completed, 54 billion rubles were sold. (about €616.6 million), the company said in its financial statements for the first quarter of 2023.
“On April 20, 2023, Henkel announced that it has signed an agreement to sell its business operations in Russia to a consortium of local financial investors. At the moment the transaction is completed, the selling price is 54 billion rubles.
the company said.
The German company produced in Russia cleaning and detergent brands Laska, Persil, Losk, Pemos, Pemolux, Vernel, as well as Moment, Methylan adhesives, Syoss, Schwarzkopf shampoos and other products.
Henkel had 11 factories in Russia: in the Perm and Engels, Leningrad, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Saratov, Ulyanovsk and Chelyabinsk regions, as well as in the Stavropol Territory. It had 12 offices in the country. In 2021, Henkel Rus’ revenue amounted to 95.14 billion rubles, net profit – 7.48 billion rubles. The number of Russian employees at that time was estimated at 2.5 thousand people.
The assets were acquired by a consortium of investors that included structures by Viktor Kharitonin (Augment Investments), Ivan Tavrin (Kismet Capital Group) and Dmitry Kryukov (Elbrus Services). Henkel announced on April 20 that it has signed an agreement with them. The company noted that the new asset holders are not subject to sanctions and have established ties with Western countries.
Reuters reported that Henkel may repurchase its assets within a few years, citing Mark Svoboda, the CFO of the German company. The exact dates when it will be possible to use the assets are not sought.
At the end of March, Vedomosti wrote, citing a source, that the possibility of acquiring Henkel’s assets was also being considered by billionaire Roman Abramovich and developer FSK, but they could not agree on the terms of the deal.
Augment Investments is a structure of the pharmaceutical manufacturer Pharmstandard Viktor Kharitonin (28th place in the Russian Forbes list, his fortune is estimated at 5 billion dollars). Kismet Capital is the investment firm of Ivan Tavrin (former general manager of MegaFon). Elbrus Services is the company of Dmitry Kryukov, founder of the Elbrus Capital investment fund.
After the special operation launched by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine in April 2022, Henkel first reported that it stopped its investments in Russia and its advertisements in the state media, and then announced its decision to leave the Russian market. Maintenance at the German company promised to be “regular”. Subsequently, the company estimated future losses of exiting the market at €184 million.
In December 2022, Henkel Supervisory Board chairman Simone Bagel-Tra admitted in an interview with the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper that Russia is an important market for Henkel with an annual turnover of 1.06 billion euros.
In 2022, Henkel Rus LLC was ranked 33rd in the Forbes ranking of the 50 largest foreign companies in the Russian Federation. The Financial Times estimates that the company’s share of revenue in Russia is 4.5%.