Carlsberg Leaves Russia Without Revealing Who Will Buy The Business

(CTN News) – There is a deal in which Carlsberg agrees to sell its Russian assets, but it does not disclose who the buyer is.

There has just been an announcement that the Danish brewer has signed an agreement to sell its Russian operations, but neither the buyer nor the agreed price for the sale has been disclosed.

An extensive regulatory review will be conducted in Carlsberg connection with the transaction.

Greetings from the Russian capital.

As one of the western breweries most exposed to the Russian market, Carlsberg announced last year that it expected a write-down of approximately 9.9 billion Danish kroner (equivalent to more than 1.32 billion euro) on its Ukrainian operations as a result of the invasion.

The separation of the Russian business from the rest of the Carlsberg Group – underlines the company in a statement – was a very complex process and included investments of more than 150 million Danish kroner (equal to more than 20 million euros) in equipment for the brewing and IT infrastructure in markets outside of Russia.

A complex regulatory approval process is being conducted in Russia in order to approve the transaction.

Under Russian law, all of these steps must be taken in order to obtain the approval of the Russian Governmental Commission, which is mandatory under Russian law.

Several customary conditions have to be met in order for the transaction to proceed, including regulatory approval and the satisfaction of certain conditions that have to be met in various jurisdictions.
Consequently, it remains uncertain as to when the definitive completion of the transaction will occur.”

Carlsberg, however, says that the sale agreement will not have any impact on its earnings expectations for 2023 as a result of the sale agreement.

It is very important to note that Cees ‘t Hart, CEO of Carlsberg, emphasized that signing the agreement for the sale of the Russian operations has marked a significant milestone in a complex separation process and sales process.

It was a long process, but we knew that it was crucial that we find the best solution for all interested parties, including our 8,000 employees in Russia, at the end of the process.

In March, the industry stated that it expected to announce the sale of the Russian assets by June of this year, and that it was also exploring the possibility of buying back the assets in the future.

There is no guarantee that the application will be approved, and if it is approved, it is hard to say when it will be approved, because Russian authorities are hard to predict” even by analysts.

In 2021, the brewer generated 10% of its revenue from Russian sales, despite the fact that the country was excluded from the Central and Eastern European market in 2022.

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