By Alexander Marrow
LONDON (Reuters) – Russia’s government has approved the sale of Danish brewer Carlsberg’s assets in Russia to VG Invest, a local firm with links to brewery holdings, for 34 billion roubles ($320.75 million), a government document seen by Reuters showed.
Moscow seized control of Carlsberg’s stake in Russia’s Baltika Breweries in July 2023 and placed it under “temporary management,” prompting Carlsberg Group CEO Jacob Aarup-Andersen to say that its business had been stolen. Carlsberg’s assets were removed from temporary management on Monday.
As part of the deal, Baltika’s stakes in Carlsberg Azerbaijan, Carlsberg Kazakhstan and another Azerbaijan subsidiary will be transferred to Carlsberg, in exchange for a brewery asset in Russia, Hoppy Union.
Carlsberg did not immediately comment. Baltika declined to comment and Russia’s finance ministry, which heads the government commission on foreign asset sales, did not immediately respond.
The proposed sale price implies Carlsberg selling at a significant discount. In a February 2023 report, Carlsberg said its net assets in Russia as of December 2022 were worth 7.52 billion Danish crowns ($1.06 billion).
Russia has steadily tightened exit requirements for foreign companies since Western sanctions were imposed over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, demanding sharp discounts on any foreign asset sales before giving approval, and taking a portion of the sale price to bolster state coffers, dubbed an “exit tax” by Washington.
VG Invest was registered in August and is managed by Yegor Guselnikov, vice president at Baltika, Russian corporate filings showed. Guselnikov also co-owns with Alexander Tolmachev Brewery Development Centre (BDC), which was incorporated in July.
Tolmachev used to work for Heineken in Russia and subsequently for grain trading firm Demetra, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Guselnikov and Tolmachev declined to comment.
BDC owns a number of companies established this year, including New Breweries and Project 650. The latter is run by Alexei Pyatkin, who is also CEO of Carlsberg-owned Hoppy Union.
Carlsberg’s assets were seized at the same time as those of Danone. Moscow forced through a sale of the French yoghurt maker’s assets to a pro-Kremlin businessman earlier this year.
Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper reported late on Monday, citing three sources, that Carlsberg had reached an agreement with private investors on the sale of its Russian business, naming only one of the investors, Taimuraz Bolloev, president of Baltika.