Unilever has sold its Russian assets to a billionaire businessman known as the “hairspray king” for a reported €520m (£430m) after the consumer goods giant was branded a “sponsor of war” by campaigners.
London-listed Unilever, which owns Marmite, Dove and Hellmann’s, said on Thursday that it had sold its Russian subsidiary to Arnest Group, a perfume, cosmetics and household goods manufacturer run by Alexey Sagal.
Mr Sagal has proved a major beneficiary of Western companies’ exodus from Russia. He snapped up the assets of Heineken’s Russian subsidiary for just €1, alongside those of the cosmetics company Oriflame and the US aluminium can maker Ball Group at a hugely discounted price.
He is reported to have also put in a near-$800m (£600m) bid for Carlsberg’s Russian business, but that was eventually taken control of by the Russian government.
The rapid growth of his empire – which was valued at more than $1bn by Bloomberg last year – has been aided by new laws on Western assets that force them to be sold at a major discount to Russian buyers.
Born in the city of Nevinnomyssk in southern Russia, Mr Sagal ran a successful household chemicals company that eventually grew into the country’s biggest producer of aerosol products. However, he is said to have been little known outside industry circles until Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since then, his spate of acquisitions has turned him into one of Russia’s most prominent businesspeople. Shortly after he bought the assets of Ball last year, he was given a state medal by Putin for making an outstanding contribution to the Russian economy and society.