Nestlé’s Russia Plants Follow the Danone Administration Path

Russia assigned Nestlé Russia’s shares to L.E.V. Management in September, a 15,000-ruble Moscow firm with almost no operating history. Nestlé’s Russian companies say this is not a change of ownership. Headquarters in Vevey now says those local lines speak for the new managers.

The legal title still sits with two Nestlé units in Switzerland and Germany. The right to run the business does not. That split is how Moscow handled Danone and Carlsberg in 2023, before both sold under pressure.

Nestlé’s Russian Shares Went to a 15,000-Ruble Firm

President Vladimir Putin’s decree, published on 17 September 2026, moved the foreign-held stakes in Nestlé Russia and Nestlé Kuban into temporary administration. Société des Produits Nestlé held 84.082 percent of Nestlé Russia and Nestlé Deutschland held 15.918 percent. On Nestlé Kuban the split was 67.44 percent and 32.56 percent. Both packets went to JSC L.E.V. Management.

The same act swept in other Western-linked businesses that had stayed after 2022.

COMPANIES NAMED IN THE SEPTEMBER DECREE

• Nestlé Russia: The main operating company, with shares held by Société des Produits Nestlé and Nestlé Deutschland.
• Nestlé Kuban: The Timashevsk plant in Krasnodar Territory, which makes instant and freeze-dried coffee and ice cream.
• Auchan: The French retailer’s Russian chain, about 230 stores and about 30,000 staff; the company declined to comment after the decree.
• Lemana PRO: The former Leroy Merlin business, held through LLC Le Monlid.
• Logistics units: Structures tied to FM Logistic and the Bati group, plus Enge Stroy.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tied the move to “unfriendly” countries whose governments, he said, back Ukraine. He also said L.E.V. Management “best corresponded to the necessary parameters,” and that no decision had been taken to pass the assets to new owners.

Assets of Auchan, Lemana Pro, and Nestle in Russia have been placed under the temporary management of L.E.V. Management, according to a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

TASS has compiled the key facts known so far:https://t.co/WK7Fhloifq pic.twitter.com/CaFzetE32i

— TASS (@tassagency_en) September 18, 2026

Vevey’s first line, in an 18 September ad hoc notice, was that it was assessing the situation and its options and would protect its rights, with employees named first. Three days later the Russian companies struck a different note: full commercial operations, obligations met “unconditionally,” and confidence that work with L.E.V. Management would help the business.

Danone and Carlsberg Already Finished This Sequence

Moscow built this tool in April 2023 for assets from countries it lists as unfriendly. The first big consumer names pulled in were Danone and Carlsberg, on 16 July 2023, through the Federal Agency for State Property Management. Both were already trying to leave. The decree cut across those sales.

HOW THE 2023 CASES CLOSED

Danone did not publish a sale price. A letter from the buyer’s side, described in later coverage of the file, spoke of 17.7 billion rubles with a 56 percent discount, part of it earmarked for local debt. The figure that Danone put on its own accounts was the €1.2 billion loss. Carlsberg’s chief executive called the 2023 seizure a theft at the time. The December 2024 close returned about $320 million in cash, plus Baltika’s holdings in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, for a business Carlsberg had already written down.

Nestlé is earlier in that sequence. Paper ownership is still Nestlé’s. The 2023 cases show how little that label decided once a presidential administrator was in the building.

What Temporary Administration Transfers to the Manager

The April 2023 design leaves the foreign parent on the share register. The temporary manager takes the owner’s powers except the right to dispose of the property, and is told to inventory it and keep it intact. Cash, hiring, procurement, and the public voice of the local companies move with those powers. A sale, if it comes, still needs a later political decision. Peskov’s “no other decisions” line is that later decision, not a promise the first one will be reversed.

That is why the local phrase “this action is not a nationalization of the company or a change of owner” can be true as a description of the statute and still leave Vevey without control of six plants. Danone’s Russian unit was renamed and run by Kremlin-appointed managers for months before Vamin R closed. Baltika kept brewing under Rosimushchestvo until the December 2024 buyout. In both files, “temporary” lasted until a buyer acceptable to the state was ready.

L.E.V. Management Had One Employee on the Books

L.E.V. Management was registered in Moscow in October 2024 with charter capital of 15,000 rubles. Its 2025 accounts showed a loss of 15,000 rubles and no real operating business. Owners are not disclosed. Corporate listings still offered it as a ready-made joint-stock company for 450,000 rubles, about $5,300. Larisa Rogacheva headed it from formation until 10 September 2026, when Andrei Krayushkin became general director, one week before the decree.

Novaya Gazeta Evropa matched Krayushkin to a former first deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s main migration directorate, a police major general. Peskov would not add biography. He only said the firm fit the parameters. A company with one employee on the file now holds the voting rights over plants Nestlé has run in Russia since 1994.

In a 22 September letter to Nestlé Russia staff, Krayushkin said his task was stable operations, jobs, and further development, and that shops across the country receive “hundreds of product names.” He said Denis Voityuk stays as executive director. Voityuk answered that the local priorities were still sales growth, brands, efficiency, and customers. Parallel letters went to Auchan and Lemana PRO. The new manager is already writing the internal mail.

Vevey Treats the Moscow Statement as the Administrator’s

The split in public language is now Nestlé’s own. The 18 September notice from headquarters was three sentences, and it did not praise L.E.V. Management.

Nestlé takes note of Russia’s presidential decree, published yesterday, that places Nestlé Russia under temporary external administration. The company is assessing the situation and its options. Nestlé is committed to taking all necessary steps to protect its rights and ensure continuity of business operations in the interests of all stakeholders, particularly its employees.

Nestlé, ad hoc announcement, Vevey, 18 September 2026

The Russian companies’ 21 September text, carried in full by Interfax the next morning, dropped the talk of rights. It promised full commercial activity, said the transfer “is not a nationalization of the company or a change of owner,” and welcomed the new managers as partners in efficiency. Headquarters later updated its Ukraine and Russia page to draw a hard line under that wording: any statements issued for the Russian entities of Nestlé reflect the position of the temporary external administration. Nestlé’s own position, the page says, remains the 18 September release.

The local “no change of ownership” line that ran worldwide was, by Vevey’s later wording, the administrator speaking. That is the first operational fact of this case, and it arrived inside a week.

THE NINE DAYS THAT MOVED THE VOICE

1. August 2026: KS Logistika asks that five Nestlé entities, including Nestlé Russia, Nestlé Kuban, Serial Partners Rus, TsPB Nestlé, and Atrium Innovations Rus, be placed under temporary management, citing a failure to expand capacity and a halt to exports of Russian-made goods.
2. 10 September 2026: Andrei Krayushkin is named general director of L.E.V. Management.
3. 17 September 2026: The presidential decree assigns the Nestlé, Auchan, Lemana PRO, and related logistics stakes to that firm.
4. 18 September 2026: Nestlé in Vevey takes note, says it is assessing options, and pledges to protect its rights.
5. 21 September 2026: Nestlé’s Russian companies say operations continue in full and that ownership has not changed.
6. 22 September 2026: Krayushkin’s staff letter keeps Denis Voityuk in the executive director’s chair.

The August petition is the tell that this was not only a sanctions-for-sanctions gesture. A little-known logistics firm argued that Nestlé had stayed in the market without investing or exporting, which is the middle path the group chose after 2022. The decree then assigned the plants that path had left in place.

Six Factories Still Carry the Nestlé Name

Nestlé’s 2025 annual review still counts 6 factories in Russia, against three in Ukraine. Interfax locates the Russian sites in the Kaluga, Vologda, Samara, and Vladimir regions and in Perm and Krasnodar Territories. The review lists powdered and liquid beverages, dairy, confectionery, prepared dishes, and pet food among the lines those plants run. The group has been in the country since 1994.

NESTLÉ’S RUSSIA FOOTPRINT

• Plants: 6 factories in the 2025 annual review, including Nestlé Kuban’s coffee and ice cream site in Timashevsk.
• People: About 7,000 staff in offices and plants.
• Weight in the group: About 2 percent of sales; Nestlé’s 2025 group sales were CHF 89.5 billion.
• Local value: Mikhail Burmistrov, chief executive of Infoline Analytics, put the Russian business, including cash, at 160 billion to 170 billion rubles.

After 2022 the group cut advertising, capital spending, and non-essential imports and exports, and kept what it called everyday food. That was the argument for remaining when other Western makers left. It also left a large, running industrial base that a one-page decree could reassign. Infoline’s 160 billion to 170 billion ruble range is an analyst’s mark, not a sale price, and no bid has been published.

PepsiCo and Mars Remain on the Same Legal Track

Unilever took the other fork. It sold its Russia and Belarus business to Arnest Group in October 2024 and left the share register. Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mars, and Mondelēz stayed, each with a smaller range and a line about essential products. Andrii Onopriienko, who heads the Kyiv School of Economics Institute’s Leave Russia project, has said that for groups with long histories in the Russian market, an exit carries a particular symbolic weight. The September decree is what that choice looks like when the state uses the 2023 statute anyway.

PepsiCo still runs a large dairy, snacks, and drinks system inside the country. Mars still makes chocolate and pet food there. None of those boards has a Nestlé-style administrator today, and Peskov has not named them. They do sit on the same April 2023 text, which needs only another decree to move another register.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The legal act: Foreign-held shares in Nestlé Russia and Nestlé Kuban are under L.E.V. Management as of 17 September 2026.
• The parent’s line: Vevey is protecting rights and treating local statements as the administrators’.
• The 2023 precedent: Danone booked a €1.2 billion loss; Carlsberg took about $320 million for Baltika after a $1 billion impairment.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A sale: No buyer, price, or timetable has been announced for Nestlé’s Russian companies.
• L.E.V.’s owners: The register does not name them.
• Compensation: Nestlé has not published a write-down or a claim amount tied to the decree.

Peskov said no further decision on new owners has been made. Nestlé’s headquarters has already separated its voice from the companies that still print its brands in Kaluga and Timashevsk. That is the point in the Danone file where the parent still held title and the local letterhead no longer spoke for Paris.