Obi gives its Russian markets to an investor

Obi has finally exited the Russian market. On 12 April 2022, Germany's largest DIY store operator transferred all its legal entities to an investor without receiving a purchase price; the transaction is still subject to approval by the authorities. Obi's condition: the Obi brand may no longer be used in Russia in the future. Thus, after the transaction, the Obi Group is neither directly nor indirectly active in Russia. This has been reported by the German business newspaper Handelsblatt. With this measure, Obi apparently wants to pre-empt a threatened expropriation in the country.

According to the report, the Russian management of Obi's national company had attempted to reopen the stores on its own authority after they had been closed. Obi is said to have prevented this by disconnecting the cash registers from the servers, thus preventing the use of the software. According to the Handelsblatt, the Russian newspaper Vedemosti speaks in this context of a "serious conflict between the Russian Obi management and the German majority shareholder".