Russia seizes Metro's Russian unit: €2.6 billion of sales, about 8% of the group, and €152 million of cash

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the Russian business of German wholesaler Metro AG placed under "temporary management," the latest Western company caught by a 2023 decree aimed at businesses from countries Moscow calls unfriendly. The order, posted on a government website, gave no reason, the Associated Press reported.

The shares of Metro Russia go to Torg Rus, a management company that corporate records show was registered earlier this month and whose chief executive is Johannes Tholey, the current head of Metro Russia, according to The Moscow Times. TASS reported the decree also covers a warehouse company in Noginsk and a Metro real estate holding.

What is at stake, in numbers

Metro's Russian business had sales of €2.6 billion (about $2.9 billion) in the 2024/25 fiscal year, and its Russian companies held €152 million in cash as of June 30, AFP reported. Metro's group sales for the year ended Sept. 30, 2025 were €32.45 billion, according to its results as reported by MarketScreener, which puts Russia at roughly 8% of revenue. The group posted a net loss of €218 million that year.

That is the figure the headline leaves out. Russia is not a rounding error for Metro, and it employs about 9,000 people there, per the AP. But Metro said in a statement that although it formally owns Metro Russia, it already had no operational control over the business, and that "further consequences of the decree on Metro AG are currently being analyzed." In practice, the question for investors is less about lost sales than about whether Metro ever recovers the value of the unit, including that cash.

What "temporary" has meant before

The track record is the useful part. The AP noted that temporary administration led to local owners taking over the Russian businesses of Danone and Carlsberg at knockdown prices. Earlier this month the Kremlin took similar control of the Russian units of Auchan, Nestle and the former Leroy Merlin chain, now Lemana PRO, according to The Moscow Times. Russia has also required foreign owners to sell at steep discounts, pay exit taxes and get government approval to leave, the AP said.

The timing is political. Germany has blamed Russia for an attempted drone attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport and closed a Russian consulate and cultural center; Moscow denies it. Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations told the AP the move signals that German companies "could lose even more companies and assets in Russia."

What to watch: whether Metro books an impairment or deconsolidates the Russian unit in its fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, and whether other German companies still operating in Russia are next. More company news on our stocks page.

Sources: Associated Press; AFP; The Moscow Times; TASS; MarketScreener. Percentages are our calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.