FAS receives request from Govor-affiliated co Club Otel for acquisition of McDonald's Russian business

MOSCOW. May 27 (Interfax) - Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has received an application from Club Hotel for the acquisition of the McDonald's Russian business, the agency said in a statement.

"The service will assess the impact of the deal on the Russian dining services market in accordance with the established procedure," the statement said.

According to the SPARK-Interfax system, Svetlana Govor is the owner of LLC Club Otel.

Earlier in May, American McDonald's Corp. agreed to sell its business in Russia to Alexander Govor, who was the company's franchisee partner and had managed 25 restaurants in Siberia since 2015.

Alexander Govor is the beneficiary of LLC GiD, the McDonald's franchisee in the Siberian Federal District. He also owns 50% of JSC NefteChemService, investor in and owner of the Yaya Oil Refinery in the Kemerovo region. He is the former owner of developer JSC Inrusinvest and is a member of its board of directors. Inrusinvest's projects the hotel Park Inn by Radisson and the medical center Grand Medica in Novokuznetsk. Svetlana Govor was listed as the owner of Inrusinvest in 2017.

LLC Club Hotel is registered in the Kemerovo region. Its main lines of business are restaurants and food delivery.

McDonald's has five operating companies in Russia: LLC McDonald's, CJSC Moscow-McDonald's and LLC SRP, LLC URP and LLC DVRP. They are all owed by McDonald's Corporation and had combined revenue of 128.8 billion rubles in 2021.

McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Russia on Pushkin Square in Moscow in 1990. The company has named it on its website as the most visited McDonald's restaurant in the world. The chain currently consists of more than 850 restaurants in Russia. McDonald's had $2.5 billion in total investments in Russia. The company paid 167 billion rubles in taxes. More than 62,000 employees worked within the McDonald's system in Russia, and suppliers employ around 100,000.

McDonald's closed its restaurants in Russia on March 14 and announced on May 16 that it was exiting the Russian market. Govor is acquiring the chain's entire restaurant portfolio and will develop it further under a new brand. It is expected that the buyer will keep on employees of the chain and maintain equivalent working conditions for them for a minimum of two years. Govor has also agreed to fund the salaries of corporate employees working in 45 regions of Russia until the deal is closed and take care of current obligations to suppliers, property owners, and utilities companies. The new owner of McDonald's restaurants in Russia is planning to begin opening them under a new brand on June 12.