KFC attracted a new top investor
According to the president of Lukoil, VagitAlekperov, the organization decided to liquidate its American division of Lukoil International Upstream West Inc., which, as is known, is located in Houston, Texas.
As stated by the president of the company, it was initially assumed that Lukoil International Upstream West Inc. will be primarily involved in projects related to the production of shale hydrocarbons in the United States. But because of the high cost of such projects, the organization had to abandon this idea.
It is already known that the newly created American office will be reorganized as part of the work to improve the management of the group’s enterprises. Thus, according to the plan, part of the staff from Houston will go to work in the Mexican office, part – in the “Lukoil Engineering”. Alekperov assured that by the end of spring at the office of Lukoil International Upstream West Inc. Only 7 employees will continue to work for this department until the end of 2019.
It was assumed that Lukoil will create in Houston, which is considered the oil capital of the United States, a powerful center for geological exploration and development of offshore fields of the company. Lukoil International Upstream West Inc. was directed to the management of projects in the field of exploration and development of oil and gas fields in Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Romania, Norway, and Mexico.
KFC is cooperating with VTBnow
A consortium of VTB, the Marathon Group, the Arab fund Al Nahdha Investment and other investors has become a new business partner of the chain of fast food restaurants, KFC in Russia. As it became known, this consortium owns almost a quarter of all restaurants of the chain in Russia.
It is worth recalling that only in November 2018, this same group of investors acquired 100% of International Restaurant Brands LLC, which, as we know, belongs to Yum! Brands Russia & CIS. By the way, the latter is responsible for the development of the KFC brand in Russia.
At the moment, information about the signed agreement has already been confirmed by VTB Capital and the Marathon Group. But the fund Al Nahdha Investment has not yet commented on this event.
In Yum! Brands said the sale of International Restaurant Brands was closed on October 31, 2018. The deal included 180 restaurants, previously directly owned by Yum! Brands and selected in a separate company. In total, at the beginning of 2019, there were about 750 KFC restaurants in Russia.
In addition to VTB, another major bank was interested in KFC. For example, in March, Sberbank bought 10% of the company “Ay KR Restaurants Russia”, which owns KFC restaurants in Russia. The buyer was the bank’s subsidiary, Sberbank Investments.
The American chain of fast food restaurants KFC appeared in Russia in 1993. The brand entered the Russian market through Rostik Group. And in 2010, the company bought the rights to restaurants in Russia and began to independently develop them under the KFC brand.
