The owner of IKEA and Mega, the Swedish group Ingka Group, has decided to sell all real estate in Russia and is looking for a buyer for more than 2 million square meters. m – this area includes Mega shopping centers and IKEA stores. After the sale of the IKEA factories, the deal will mean the complete withdrawal of the group from the country. This was told to RBC by two sources in investment companies, one source in the retail market and one more in the real estate market.
The value of the portfolio is estimated at $5 billion – $10 billion, but, according to experts, now foreigners can sell assets in Russia at a discount of at least 50%, so the transaction amount will be much lower. According to RBC sources, negotiations are underway with at least two potential buyers, whose names are not disclosed.
According to INFOLine-Analytics, the area of Ingka Group is 2.3 million square meters. m, rented – 1.8 million square meters. Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of INFOLine-Analytics, said that the value of the Ingka Group real estate portfolio in Russia is about $5 billion. Without taking into account the discounts that will be required upon sale, the cost could be $10 billion or more, said Nikolai Kazansky, managing partner of Nikoliers .
The sale of assets of companies from "unfriendly countries" from 2022 will be coordinated by a special commission under the government. Since the end of last year, the condition for the approval of transactions has also been the transfer of 10% of the transaction amount to the budget of the Russian Federation or the installment payment of assets for one or two years.
All IKEA stores in Russia suspended their work on March 4, 2022, it was noted that the decision will affect 15 thousand employees. Initially, the company did not announce a complete withdrawal from the Russian market, only the suspension of activities was reported. The group then decided to sell its factories in Russia, which produced lumber and furniture fronts for IKEA. Against the backdrop of the departure of retail chains for the manufacture of furniture in the Russian Federation, they decided to use colonies. Last summer, the GUFSIN held an exhibition of products made by prisoners in Yekaterinburg; in two days of the exhibition, contracts were signed with institutions for the manufacture of furniture for 3.5 million rubles. Ivan Sharkov, head of the department for labor adaptation of convicts of the Main Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Sverdlovsk Region, said that the colonies could well take the place of IKEA, and if we compare the furniture, prisoners have “both better quality and lower prices.”
