On May 18, 2022, Societe Generale completed the sale of Rosbank, which emerged as a result of the tie-up of Rosbank and Société Générale Vostok, and the Group’s Russian insurance subsidiaries to Interros Capital. Russia’s war in Ukraine made the French banking group reconsider its decades-long presence in Russia. Later it established a subsidiary, Bank Société Générale Vostok, which became one of the first foreign banks in the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It returned to the USSR in 1973, opening a representative office in Moscow. Petersburg and actively invested in various railway-related Russian enterprises.īut in 1917, the Group had to suspend its activities in Russia. Through its subsidiary, the French banking group financed the construction of the first city tram lines in St.
Nine years later, it was transformed into the Russian-Asian Bank. In 1901, the Group opened a subsidiary in St. Société Générale came to Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. On May 12, 2022, hit by sanctions, the German manufacturing giant said it will exit the Russian market entirely. Most of its business there involves service work on high-speed trains and is based on the company’s local plants.Īt the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022, Siemens put all new business and international deliveries in Russia and Belarus on hold. Now, this market contributes only about 1% of the company’s annual revenue. However, given the lessons of the past, Siemens has not been betting big on Russia.
That was a lesson to learn, but already in the 1920s, the company established new business contacts with the Soviet authorities and since then has supplied various equipment to the USSR and, once it collapsed, to Russia. For services to the Russian industry, Karl Siemens even received the nobility title.ĭespite all the success in Russia, in 1916, the process of nationalization of all Siemens & Halske’s enterprises was launched, first by a tsar, then by Soviet commissars. Since then and for decades, Russia was the second-largest market for the then Berlin-based company, and Siemens & Halske built a plant there expanding into the electric lighting and energy transmission. To handle the project, the company opened a construction office in St. In 1853, the Russian government awarded the company "Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske" a contract to build the Russian state telegraph network, with a total length of some 9,000 kilometers. German industrial giant Siemens is leaving Russia after nearly 170 years since the company’s first contact in Russia (the Russian Empire then). The recent months have proved that Russians are eager to replace western goods and services with the local ones. Many companies prefer not to pay attention to Russian atrocities in Ukraine, using their long history in Russia as one of the excuses and simply engaging in self-deception. The longevity of the relations with the country was regarded as a foundation for Russian customers’ loyalty. Their decisions to leave despite the decades-long history of operations in Russia highlight the point that many other companies still refuse to accept: one’s longevity of relations with Russia is not a good enough reason to keep operating there ignoring all its war crimes in Ukraine.Ī long history of work in the Russian market is something multinationals used to brag about and build their brands on.
Some of those pulling out have been working in Russia since the early 90-s, Soviet times, or even the prerevolutionary times of the Russian Empire. May 2022 has been quite a fruitful month when it comes to international companies completely withdrawing from Russia because of its unprovoked and unlawful war on Ukraine: Siemens, McDonald’s, Starbucks, M&S, Wella Company…
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