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bne September 2022 Companies & Markets I 11
breakaway east Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent, and just two days before Moscow launched its all-out assault on Ukraine.
Kubicki, a member of Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s Free Democrats Party (FDP), one of the three parties in Germany’s ruling coalition, said the pipeline should be activated “as soon as possible” to fill gas storage facilities ahead of winter. He said there was “no sound reason not to open Nord Stream 2”, as Germany was already getting Russian gas supply from Nord Stream, and that getting “gas from Nord Stream 2 is no more immoral than from Nord Stream. It’s just a different pipe.”
His comments drew criticism from several other FDP
Samsonite packs its bags and sells its Russian business to the 'suitcase king'
Ben Aris in Berlin
In the latest exit of an international brand, the Russian division of the US suitcase manufacturer Samsonite has been sold to its local management for an undisclosed sum, Vedomosti reported on August 23.
The company suspended its operations in Russia in March shortly after the invasion of Ukraine. Samsonite International sold 30% of Samsonite LLC to CEO Andrey Yazykov and 70% to the local company’s president Vyacheslav Shikulov.
The deal was closed on July 8, at the same time Samsonite was renamed Chemodan Pro (“Suitcase Pro” in Russian), according to SPARK-Interfax. The amount was not disclosed but Vedomosti reports that analysts estimate the value of the brand in Russia at around $100mn, although this could have been greatly reduced by the effect of the sanctions and the deal may have closed for only a token sum.
Luxury luggage brands are surprisingly aggressive in opening up emerging markets very quickly as there is always a rich elite of “new money” in these markets and people tend to buy their luggage for life, making it important to get into new markets quickly.
members, however, including Marie-Agnes Strack Zimmermann, the chair of the Bundestag’s defence committee, who responded by saying “Nord Stream 2 is dead.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also hit back, warning that “addiction to Russian gas kills.” However, his views are apparently not shared by much of the German electorate. According to a Forsa survey, reported by Der Spiegel last week, two thirds of Germans would have no problem with the country receiving gas from Nord Stream 2.
German gas storage facilities are now fairly full, at 78.9% of capacity as of August 20, but the high cost of energy imports is pushing a number of German energy utilities to the brink of bankruptcy, meaning the government may have to step in and offer further bailouts as it did with Uniper earlier this year.
Luxury luggage companies are usually early entrants into emerging markets as people buy their bags and keep them for life. Samsonite sold its local business to the local trader that got them going, Vyacheslav Shikulov, who has been dubbed Russia's "suitcase king". / bne IntelliNews
Since its entry Samsonite has built up a retail network and Infoline Analytics estimates it is losing RUB2.5mn ($41,800) per day after it closed its 37 stores from which it earned RUB3bn ($50mn) in 2021, according to SPARK-Interfax. According to Infoline-analytics, the share of Samsonite in the Russian luggage market last year was more than 14%.
It is not clear what Chemodan Pro intends to do with the retail chain, but one of the options open it is to continue to sell Samsonite luggage, but as a parallel import where the new owners do not deal with the parent company directly any more, but source the product via an intermediate based in a “friendly” country like Turkey, ignoring Samsonite’s intellec- tual property rights and forgoing Samsonite LLC's exclusive distribution deal with the US company.
The deal is interesting as a management buyout of Russian subsidiaries is an obvious and easy exit for most interna- tional companies. The oil service companies like Schlum- berger mostly entered the Russian market by buying a local company in the same sector and retaining their manage- ment. Now they are leaving again and forced to sell at a deep discount. These managers are an obvious exit. Moreover, as
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