According to company president David Shear, Burger King opened its first restaurant in a franchise construction ten years ago that included Russian entrepreneur Alexander Kolobov. None of the partners has a majority interest in that joint venture.
That makes unilateral exit impossible, RBI reports. The partners in Russia do not respond to requests to close the restaurants, so this can only be enforced with support from the Russian government, Shear writes. That support is not to be expected, he adds.
Burger King has discontinued all services to its Russian branches: supplies, marketing and day-to-day operations are no longer supported by the parent company. Profits from the Russian company will also be transferred to the United Nations Refugee Fund (UNHCR).
Shear would have liked to see things differently: “Would we like to stop all activities in Russia? Yes. Can we enforce that now? New. But we want to be transparent about our actions and explain the steps we have taken to stand firm with the international community against the Russian attack on Ukraine and her people.”