The company says it has started the process of selling its Russian business, which includes 850 restaurants that employ 62,000 people. It’s the first time the company has ever exited a major market.
“Some might argue that providing access to food and continuing to employ tens of thousands of ordinary citizens, is surely the right thing to do,” McDonald’s president and CEO Chris Kempczinski said in a letter to employees. “But it is impossible to ignore the humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.”
French carmaker Renault said Monday that it would sell its majority stake in Russian car company Avtovaz and a factory in Moscow to the state — the first major nationalization of a foreign business since the war began. McDonald’s first restaurant in Russia opened in the middle of Moscow more than three decades ago, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a powerful symbol of the easing of Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union, which would collapse in 1991.
McDonald’s owns 84% of its restaurants in Russia; the rest are operated by franchisees. Because it won’t license its brand, the sale price likely won’t be close to the value of the business before the invasion, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, a corporate analytics company.