Senator and former president of Kabardino-Balkaria Arseniy Kanokov has become a co-owner of the company Vkusno i toka, which acquired the restaurants of the McDonald's company, which left Russia. This follows from the company's audit reports studied by Project journalists.
The fact that Kanokov is indeed a McDonald's buyer was confirmed by a person familiar with the details of the deal. This was previously reported by the Times of Israel, citing a recording of a telephone conversation between businessman Magomed Musayev, who participated in the deal.
After McDonald's left Russia, a little-known businessman, Alexander Govor, who could hardly afford such a large purchase, was announced as the formal owner of the restaurants. "The Project studied the auditor's report on Vkusno i tochka's annual financial statements for 2022 and found that Govor at least had a partner.
According to the report, Govor owns only 51% of Vkusno i tochka. It is clear who his partner is from the composition of the board of directors.
Oleg Eskindarov and Yegor Solomatin took two of the five seats on the board, and they are the president and vice president of the Sindika holding, respectively. It was founded by Arsen Kanokov.
Kanokov is the former president of Kabardino-Balkaria and now a senator. Therefore, he is not formally allowed to do business, but his family company controls many important assets. In particular, after the war broke out, it acquired stakes in Starbucks and OBI.
Together with Kanokov, Starbucks and OBI were bought by people from the entourage of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Perhaps they were also involved in the purchase of McDonald's.
At least, a source familiar with the details of the deal claims that Adam Delimkhanov, an associate of the Chechen leader, showed interest in McDonald's assets, but he does not know whether his people received a share or not.
One of the GetContact users listed in his phone book the number of Sergey Kropachev, who had previously received 21.5% of the Starbucks coffee chain, as a "shareholder of VIT" (short for "Delicious and Dot"). In many phone books, Kropachev is also listed as "Adam Delimkhanov's assistant".
Background. As reported, the NBU proposes to foreign regulators to disclose information about their clients' ties to Russia.