Former head of Kabardino-Balkaria has become a co-owner of the Russian McDonald’s. Associates of Ramzan Kadyrov could also be involved in the deal
January, 29, 2024
Arsen Kanokov, senator and former president of Kabardino-Balkaria, has become a co-owner of the company Vkusno i Tochka, which acquired the restaurants of the McDonald’s company that left Russia. This follows from the audited financial statements of the company studied by Proekt. The fact that Kanokov is indeed the one who purchased McDonald’s was confirmed to us by a person familiar with the details of the deal. This was previously reported by the Times of Israel, citing a recording of a phone conversation of Magomed Musaev, a businessman involved in the deal.
After McDonald’s left Russia, the formal owner of the restaurants was announced to be a little-known businessman, Alexander Govor, who could hardly afford such a large purchase. Proekt studied the audit report to the 2022 annual financial statements of Govor’s company Vkusno i Tochka and discovered that Govor at least had a partner.
According to the report, Govor owns only 51% of Vkusno i Tochka. The identity of his partner is clear from the composition of the board of directors. Oleg Eskindarov and Egor Solomatin occupy two of the five seats on the board. They are the president and vice-president of Sindika Holding, respectively. The holding was founded by Arsen Kanokov.
Kanokov is the former president of Kabardino-Balkaria and now a senator. Formally, he has no right to engage in business, but his family company controls many important assets. In particular, after the war started, it acquired a stake in the Russian branches of Starbucks and OBI.
Kanokov was assisted in the purchases of Starbucks and OBI by people from the entourage of Chechnya’s head of state Ramzan Kadyrov. It is possible that they were also involved in the purchase of McDonald’s. At least, Proekt’s source familiar with the details of the deal claims that Adam Delimkhanov, an associate of Chechnya’s leader, was showing interest in the future McDonald’s, but the source does not know whether his people got a share or not. One GetContact user saved the number of Sergei Kropachev, who previously received 21.5% of the Russian branch of Starbucks, in his contact list as “shareholder of VT” (which is short for Vkusno i Tochka). Many other people also have Kropachev’s number saved as “Adam Delimkhanov’s assistant”.
Read more in our investigation (in Russian) into how sanctioned individuals acquired the Russian branches of the most prominent Western companies (in Russian)