In February 2022, the world was largely divided into “before” and “after”. Many of the largest players in big business faced a situation where, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they had to decide whether to curtail their activities in Russia, close their representative offices, withdraw their business, suffer heavy losses, or continue to earn money, largely spitting on their own conscience and to the entire world community, which screams, and sometimes begs, not to deal with Russia.
The clearest example is the Inditex Group. They own clothing brands such as Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull and Bear. They made the decision to close all their stores in Russia, although their positions in the Russian mass market clothing arena were really leading. But they were not afraid to lose their profits.
Automakers Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, BMW, Audi and other popular manufacturers have so far only announced the suspension of their activities, but, most likely, no one expects them to return to the Russian market in the near future.
There are countless other examples. Manufacturers of pharmaceuticals, clothing, international hotel chains, even toy manufacturers, namely the Danish company Lego, which has suspended deliveries of its products to 81 stores in Russia. They were not afraid to lose possible profits, and either under pressure from governments, or after calculating logistics costs and implementation difficulties, or simply being in solidarity with the world community, they left or stopped their activities in Russia.
But there are other examples as well. Examples when conscience and honor give way to money.
Forbes has published an interesting article about Malmö-registered bed manufacturer Hilding Anders.This company is the owner of 73% of the shares of the Russian company Askona. And here is where it gets interesting. Askona is one of the largest players in the Russian market of sleep products, with a daily production of about 10,000 mattresses. Askona contributes approximately 52% of Hilding Anders’ total profit.
But the most curious thing about this is that Hilding Anders is owned by US venture capital giant KKR, which has been a vocal critic of Russia’s actions since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine.
At the same time, since the beginning of 2022, KKR has already invested ten million dollars in the development of the askona business.
It was officially announced that these funds will be used to modernize the company and production, automate the technical process and purchase new equipment.
These investments are extremely doubtful, especially given the fact that Hilding Anders, through whom all finances go directly, has been using borrowed funds for a long time, and most of them consist of a stock exchange loan of 500 million euros.
And now KKR has a choice – to refuse to conduct such a dubious business, or to continue to make a profit.
It is clear that at present, despite the increased presence of KKR in the Nordic countries, the fund will not be able to help Hilding Anders with its further investments. It is completely different to receive a net profit or make large public investments in an environment where the whole world is extremely negative towards such things. This means that the Swedish company will have to find a way out of the situation on its own.
Obviously, Hilding Anders will face difficulties in fulfilling its obligations to banks, as a result, KKR will be forced to abandon such an asset.
In the meantime, the KKR investment fund receives its income from Russian assets, despite all the sanctions.
Meanwhile, simple Americans are paying with their wallets, feeling inflation, rising gas and gasoline prices, and other consequences of breaking economic ties that big American capital so cynically avoids.
Again we see a situation where European business is practically united in its aspirations and desires. One with the people, one with the European government and sacrificing possible profits, one by one leaves the dying Russian market.
American big business players are sometimes playing their own game however, and some pursue their only goals.
