Globus keeps opening stores in Russia while its owner urges Berlin to talk to Moscow

Most Western companies still working in Russia try not to be noticed. German retailer Globus does the opposite: it kept opening new stores during the war, and its main owner openly argues that Berlin should make peace with the Kremlin.

What happened?

Russia keeps taking over the assets of foreign companies that did not leave. On 5 November Vladimir Putin placed the Russian business of tobacco maker JTI under temporary management. A month earlier the same happened to German retailer Metro, which then donated one billion rubles for equipment "needed by the military at the front".

Of about two dozen companies put under temporary management, only one, Ariston, has won back operational control. Globus, however, has so far been spared, and it doesn't look like it is in danger at all.

This year its main shareholder, Thomas Bruch, 76, even travelled to the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. Organisers had stressed that US and EU delegations were coming for the first time since 2022. Among the Germans, Bruch was the only real business leader.

Who is Thomas Bruch?

Globus is a family firm with almost 200 years of history. It began in 1828 with a small shop in St. Wendel, a town of 25,000 in Saarland, where the headquarters still stands. Forbes estimates Bruch's fortune at 1.6 billion dollars. Off duty, he breeds Trakehner horses with his wife Graciela.

According to the Leave Russia project of the Kyiv School of Economics, more than 2,000 German companies still operate in Russia. By revenue, Globus ranks second among them, behind only Metro.

In Germany, Bruch's views are no secret. In 2017 Handelsblatt called him a "Putinversteher", a word for people who try to understand and excuse Putin's foreign policy. That year he told Die Welt that the West bears considerable blame for the conflict over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, pointing to NATO enlargement. In 2022 he said he wants peace above all, but did not describe what it should look like.

Why not just leave?

In the same 2022 interview with Manager Magazin, Bruch said leaving was never considered. In his view it would probably have ended in forced nationalisation, "and nobody would win from that".

Whether his statements reflect his real convictions, only he knows. Either way, they suit the interests of his business.

What's next?

The seizures continue: after JTI, Coca-Cola's Russian bottler may be next, according to Russian media reports. Globus, for now, keeps its stores open.