McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coke and Pepsi stop selling in Russia

NEW YORK, March 8 (Reuters) – McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and Starbucks on Tuesday halted sales of their best-known products in Russia and collectively rebuked the war on Ukraine by companies that define America for much of the world .

Pepsi and McDonald’s were corporate pioneers whose work with the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet Russian state decades ago was seen as improving international relations.

All four companies have significant branches in Russia.

McDonald’s said it will continue to pay salaries to its 62,000 employees in Russia as it has closed 847 restaurants. The first location to open in Russia in 1990 on Pushkin Square in central Moscow became a symbol of burgeoning American capitalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Continue reading

“I’m glad they stopped by and made the right decision,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management who follows big business stances on Russia, said after McDonald’s move. “It’s a really important impact, and it’s as symbolic as it is material.”

Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) is temporarily closing hundreds of stores. PepsiCo Inc (PEP.O) will suspend all advertising in Russia and stop selling its beverage brands while continuing to sell staples like milk and baby formula. Rival Coca-Cola Co (KO.N) said it would cease business there. Continue reading

Coca-Cola was the official drink of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, although the United States boycotted the event in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Scores of other companies have also slammed Russia, and Amazon.com Inc said Tuesday it would stop accepting new customers for its cloud services in Russia and Ukraine. Universal Music has suspended all operations in Russia, and online dating service Bumble Inc will remove its apps from stores in Russia and Belarus.

Earlier, Royal Dutch Shell Plc stopped buying oil from Russia and announced it would cut ties with the country entirely, while the United States stepped up its campaign to punish Moscow by banning Russian oil and energy imports.

Moscow has described the attack as a “military special operation” aimed not at occupying territory but at destroying Ukraine’s military capabilities.

Western efforts to isolate Russia economically for attacking its neighbor have hit global commodity and energy markets hard, sending prices soaring and threatening to derail the nascent recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading

Britain, too, said it would ban imports of Russian oil, but only by phasing them out over the course of 2022 to give companies time to find alternative sources of supply.

The London Metal Exchange (LME) halted trading in nickel on Tuesday after prices of the metal, a key component in electric vehicle batteries, doubled to more than $100,000 a tonne.

Shell’s decision to abandon Russia comes days after the company faced a barrage of criticism over its purchase of Russian oil – a transaction that two weeks ago would have been routine.

“We are aware that our decision last week to buy a shipment of Russian crude to be processed into products such as gasoline and diesel – while security of supply was at the forefront of our thinking – was not the right one and we apologize.” , said CEO Ben van Beurden.

Shell and rivals BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) have all announced plans to sell holdings in Russia and leave the country, leaving TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) relatively isolated from France as it continues to invest in it holds. Continue reading

HYBRID DELAYS

Mining group BHP (BHP.AX) warned that the rise in commodity prices could lead to already skyrocketing inflation and potentially hurt global growth.

Nickel prices surged as China’s Tsingshan Holding Group, one of the world’s top nickel and stainless steel producers, bought large quantities of nickel to reduce its bets on falling prices, three sources familiar with the matter said. Continue reading

Tsingshan and the LME declined to comment.

In addition to high-quality nickel, the price of other metals used in car production, from aluminum in bodywork to palladium in catalytic converters, has skyrocketed and industry supply chains have been disrupted. Continue reading

Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) said it would stop taking orders for numerous plug-in hybrid models from Wednesday as problems in the supply chain exacerbated production delays caused by chip shortages.

The carmaker had already halted production in Russia and also suspended production at several plants in Germany due to difficulties in sourcing components. Continue reading

Orders for the plug-in hybrid versions of the Volkswagen Golf, Tiguan, Passat, Arteon and Touareg models will be suspended until further notice, and deliveries of orders already placed may not happen this year, the company said.

Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong, Ahmad Ghaddar, Uday Sampath Kumar, Eric Onstad, Jan Schwar, Jessica DiNapoli, and Victoria Waldersee. Writing by Paul Sandle, David Clarke, Anna Driver and Peter Henderson. Edited by Nick Zieminski and Matthew Lewis

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