Russia has its own McDonalds (who totally coincidentally operate in the exact same locations) and Starbucks (called Star coffee, as someone said, they had TsarBucks right fucking there).
Many of these are interests sold off to local partners and many have to buy back agreements. Starbucks has franchise agreements that preclude buyback, but frankly keeping the name and locations would make a rentry very easy, just change the sign.
Are brands being disinegenous? Hoping to get past this in a few years and setting the stage for an easy re-entry and avoid or at least minimize loss of business reputation in the market for when it happens.
And where applicable isn’t this a fine way past sacntions.
What, exactly, do you think the brands are doing that’s disingenuous?
It would not surprise me in the slightest if the companies hoped they’d be eventually move back in once the sanctions against Russia get lifted.
It’s not like the companies were doing this as some sort of protest of Russia. They were doing it because it was required by law. They would only move out of Russia on their own if they found they lost more money being there than not being there.
And even if they were doing it out of protest, such protest would only work if they were willing to move back in once their concerns were addressed.
War crimes and tragedy aside, that’s hilarious.
What law? I’m not aware of any sanctions on western companies doing business in Russia in the area of consumer products.
And yes, the companies did say they were pulling out as a protest against Russia. See this comment from a fund manager:
The firms initially remained tight lipped over the conflict, but took action because shareholders “wouldn’t stand” for the continued generation of profits from Russia, says Anna MacDonald, a fund manager at Amati Global Investors.
“It was affecting their share prices and the feeling was that it was just utterly inappropriate to continue to do so,” she told the BBC.
Required is a bit too strong, I’ll admit. But you don’t need a law against consumer facing business to make it where said business can’t effectively run. The sanctions made it very difficult to move money out of Russia. They froze the foreign assets of the oligarchs, and made it where any company found to be helping them would face sanctions.
And, no, your quotes do not say McDonald’s pulled out in protest. It says that they did so because were losing money from shares, and that it was inappropriate to keep on losing that money.
McDonalds had an uphill battle to try and remain in Russia and still make more money than if they left. So they left. That’s how businesses run. Some may put a PR spin on it to say that they left out of some sort of patriotism or other stuff, but that’s never the actual reason.
I don’t know if there is enough information out in the public domain to answer the OP factually. Let’s move this over to IMHO to allow a bit more speculation and opinion about what these companies may be planning.
Any factual information is of course still welcome.
Moving thread from FQ to IMHO.
I think there were several Western brands which had been doing business in Russia for years to decades. After the latest Ukraine episode, many made a point of announcing they were pulling out of Russia at substantial cost and with unclear legal obligations. Many companies seem to have done this on a long term basis. The loss of local goodwill and profits is significant. Are these companies acting in good faith? The conflict is hard to justify. In many cases boards and leaders are personally upset by what has transpired.
Of course, Russian consumers still want.the same or similar products and with openings in the markets, Russian businessmen will take advantage of this opportunity, keeping things as similar as possible. My opinion on it does not change what happens there. Foreign copies of successful brands are hardly uncommon, especially where the government is stronger, and laws weaker.
My impression is that numerous brands chose to stop serving the Russian market because they believed they’d somehow lose money in the West and/or in Russia if they kept operating, as @BigT said. For instance, there’s nothing preventing the Russian government from adding a special tax on foreign-owned retail shops, or declaring that the few Western employees of these chains are spies or foreign agents. I’m sure these companies expected to reopen their Russian operations in a few months or years.
The people opening the “replacement” McDonald’s and Starbucks shops are just Russian businessfolks with enough money to do so, with lots of approving nods from the Kremlin that probably help reduce the red tape. It’s not clear if they’re reusing the leases and equipment left behind by the shops’ previous operators, but again this would not be surprising at all.
And good luck to Starbucks Coffee or McDonald’s if they want to sue, in Russian courts, a Russian landlord or local government about reuse of their locations, or a Russian restaurant company over confusing branding.