E-commerce giant finalizes Russia exit

Germany’s Otto Group had been operating in the country for more than 30 years

One of the world’s biggest e-commerce companies, Otto Group, has liquidated all of its assets in Russia, Kommersant newspaper reported on Friday, citing its sources on the real estate market.

The German retailer sold its two warehouses in the Tver region to a local warehouse operator, Multicold. The assets were estimated to be worth an equivalent of just over $28 million but were reportedly sold at half the price. Multicold has confirmed the purchase and has already leased some of the storage space to Russian e-commerce giant Ozon.

Otto Group, known mainly as a mail order and online retail company, entered the Russian market in 1991. The printed catalogs – which offered clothes sold by brands like Bonprix, Quelle, Witt, and Otto – were widely popular in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s.

The Hamburg-based group began scaling back its presence in the country in 2018, as operations were complicated by a wave of Ukraine-related sanctions in 2014-2015, CEO of Otto Group Russia Rene Picard told Vedomosti in a January 2022 interview.

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After the start of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, the company joined scores of other Western businesses in announcing its exit from Russia.

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