Carlsberg announced the sale of Baltika to local management

“The new majority shareholder of the Baltika brewery will be a company owned by two former Baltika employees, who currently hold senior positions in the company. These two people will take over the leadership of Baltika as CEO and Deputy CEO,” the statement reads.

As part of the agreement, Carlsberg will receive a cash reward, as well as Baltika’s shares in its subsidiaries in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan: Carlsberg Azerbaijan and Carlsberg Kazakhstan. The parties will also resolve all legal disputes, including those related to licenses.

Carlsberg did not disclose the amount of the transaction, but promised to provide additional details in the 2024 financial report.

Russian authorities approved the sale of Carlsberg’s local assets to VG Invest for 34 billion rubles (about $320.75 million), Reuters writes, citing a government document. The agency noted that the Danish company sold the Russian business at a significant discount. In a February 2023 report, Carlsberg said its assets in Russia were worth approximately $1 billion as of December 2022.

The day before, on December 2, Vladimir Putin removed Baltika from the temporary leadership of the Federal Property Management Agency. This step gave Carlsberg the opportunity to sell the business, said Anna Zabrotskaya, head of the dispute resolution practice at law firm Nordic Star, in a conversation with Vedomosti.

The Danish company announced plans to leave the Russian market in March 2022. In June 2023, Carlsberg announced that it had found a buyer for the Russian assets, but a month later Putin transferred the foreign shares in Baltika to the Federal Agency for Property Management. Carlsberg called this “unexpected” and estimated losses from the cancellation of the Russian business at 624 billion rubles.