Russia’s Ukraine invasion spurs corporate exodus

Autoshipments stopped, beer stopped flowing, cargo ships dropped port calls, and oil companies cut their pipelines. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrown business plans into disarray and forced a growing number of the world’s best known brands — from Apple to Ford and BP — to pull out of a country that’s become a global outcast as companies seek to maintain their reputations and live up to corporate responsibility standards.

Investors were drawn to Russia in search of lucrative profits they thought were worth the geopolitical risks. That calculation has changed after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched war in Europe, triggering a wave of global sanctions and export restrictions that have thrown its economy into turmoil and disrupted the operations of multinational corporations there. “You basically have Russia becoming a commercial pariah,” said economist Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

“Pretty much no company, no multinational, wants to be caught on the wrong side of US and Western sanctions.” Oil and gas companies, already feeling the heat from climate activists to invest in renewable energy, were among companies to announce the most rapid and dramatic exits.

Energy firm BP said Sunday that it would abandon its $14 billion stake in stateowned oil and gas company Rosneft. Shell said the next day it was leaving its joint venture with state-owned Gazprom and its involvement in the now-suspended Nord Stream 2 pipeline built to carry natural gas to Western Europe. Similarly, Harley-Davidson halted motorcycle shipments to Russia and said its thoughts “continue for the safety of the people of Ukraine.” Putin famously rode a three-wheeled Harley on a visit to Ukraine in 2010.

Copenhagen-based Danish brewery group Carlsberg suspended production at two breweries in Ukraine, saying it’s “following the situation with great concern” but didn’t comment on its extensive Russian operations, including St. Petersburg-based Baltika Breweries, which exports beer worldwide. The world’s biggest shipping company, A.P. MollerMaersk, said it will stop making Russian port calls, saying it was “deeply concerned” by the escalating crisis. (AP)