[ad_1]
Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, sold its Russian KFC business to Smart Service, a Russian company led by Konstantin Yurievich Kotov and Audrey Eduardovich Oskolkov.
It is now rebranding the restaurants as Rostik’s. “The dishes we make are completely the same as KFC,” Kotov told RBC news.
Rostik’s branding is also red, black and white, in the same style as KFC. An opening event at one outlet featured a giant cake in the shape of a popcorn chicken bucket.
There is a surreal parallel with the mass privatisation of state assets in the 1990s following the demise of the Soviet Union.
Just as the new oligarchs accumulated wealth by taking over state property, Russian businessmen are now rapidly acquiring Western assets, supply chains, customer bases and business networks at cheap prices.
Russians have acquired assets from 110 Western companies which have left the country.
Their total value, as defined by their net assets at the end of 2022, was around €35bn (£30bn), according to analysis by Novaya Gazeta Europe – the long-established Russian opposition newspaper which closed in Moscow in March 2022 and relaunched in Latvia.
These purchases have typically taken place at large discounts. In some cases, factory assets have been sold for the symbolic price of €1. According to Novaya-Europe, Vladimir Potanin, Russia’s richest businessman, who is sanctioned by the UK and the US, has acquired assets worth around €16bn.
But even if brands have not sold their assets, companies are moving in to fill the gap they have left behind.
“Shops are realising that companies may have pulled out, but people still want (their goods). Capitalism is the winner. It’s just someone else taking a cut in the middle,” says Tickle.
Adverts for Mamba, a Russian dating app, can be seen at bus stops in the wake of Tinder’s exit. “That’s been around forever but it’s not cool. Nobody used it after Tinder rocked up. I guess now they are trying to make it cool,” says Tickle.
The Swedish furniture shop Ikea has left Russia for good, but Russians can now buy flatpack furniture from Belarussian company Swed House, which brands itself in the iconic yellow and blue.
An Ikea spokesman said: “IKEA has nothing to do with ‘Swed House’. What we can see is that they are trying to leap in and serve IKEA customers, and that they are clearly inspired by IKEA.
[ad_2]
Source link