IKEA owner sells business in Russia

In the spring of 2022, Inter IKEA Group and Ingka Group announced the pausing of IKEA operations in Russia and Belarus as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, and due to interruptions of supply chains across the world. All IKEA stores in Russia (17 stores in total) were closed in the summer of 2022.

"Now we can confirm that Ingka Centres has reached an agreement to sell its Russian portfolio of 14 MEGA shopping centers to a subsidiary of the Gazprombank Group," the statement reads.

The company has officially left the Russian market

Ingka Centres has been doing business in Russia for over 20 years. "Divestment of the entire Russian portfolio of shopping centers has taken time as it is a sensitive, highly complex, and confidential process," the statement says.

After the sale of the shopping centers, Ingka Centres has no operational business in Russia.

In late July, Ingka Centres, which owned the MEGA shopping and entertainment centers, sold the Khimki Business Park office complex (42,000 square meters) located on Leningradskaya Street in Khimki.

Ingka Group

It is owned by the registered Dutch Stichting Ingka Foundation, founded in 1982 by Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish billionaire and owner of IKEA. Ingka is one of the largest charitable foundations in the world.

Foreign companies exiting the Russian market

After the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of Western companies announced their exit from the Russian market. Companies attempting to stay in the terrorist country face significant cost increases, as Moscow demands substantial discounts on the price of assets they want to sell.

Yesterday, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, announced its final exit from the Russian market and reached an agreement to sell its Russian business to the CommEX exchange.

The tobacco giant company British American Tobacco has also sold its business in Russia and Belarus.