Foreign companies have lost over $100 billion in the process of leaving Russia since it started the war in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin. Getty Images

• Foreign companies exiting Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have amassed losses of $107 billion.
• Putin’s regime has intensified punitive measures on companies that want to leave Russia.
• Despite thousands pledging to leave, only 372 companies have exited Russia since the war started.

Foreign companies that have left Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022 have lost $107 billion in the process of exiting the market, according to a Reuters analysis published on Thursday.

Reuters last published an analysis of company filings and statements in August. At that time, foreign companies leaving Russia had lost over $80 billion in the departure process.

The new data represents a 30% increase since Reuters’ last analysis.

The departing companies have lost so much in writedowns and lost revenue because President Vladimir Putin’s regime has implemented increasingly punitive measures for exiting firms. Those include requiring companies to sell their assets at a 50% discount and pay at least 10% of their sale proceeds to the federal budget. Washington has called such payments “exit taxes.”

Companies that wish to leave Russia must be approved by Moscow. Companies operating in sectors such as energy and banking need Putin’s personal sign-off.

Thousands of foreign companies pledged to leave Russia after it started the war in Ukraine. Just 372 of them have made a complete exit since the war started, according to a count by the Kyiv School of Economics.

Another 502 companies are in the process of withdrawing from the country, while another 702 companies have suspended their operations in the country.

Companies trying to sell their assets in Russia this year include energy giant Shell, banking major HSBC, mining company Polymetal International, and tech company Yandex.

Their assets sales total nearly $10 billion and they were sold at discounts as high as 90%, per Reuters’ calculation.

“There are no Western assets in Russia that can be considered safe or ringfenced so long as the Kremlin continues to wage war,” Ian Massey, the head of corporate intelligence at global risk consultancy S-RM, told Reuters.

Other than writedowns and lost revenue, departing foreign companies have also been paying huge fees to the Russian government.

Exiting companies had already paid 35.7 billion rubles, or $387 million, to Russia’s budget as of March 15, Russia’s RBC Daily reported earlier this month, citing official data.

As Business Insider reported in December, many of the biggest Western household names — companies such as McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Ikea — have already left Russia.

Among the major foreign companies still operating in Russia are Nestlé, Unilever, and Mondelez.

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