On 17 September a presidential decree put the Russian companies belonging to Auchan, Nestlé, FM Logistic and the former Leroy Merlin under “temporary management”. Decree No. 661 adds 29 entries to the list attached to decree No. 302 of 2023. The 29 entries cover 16 Russian legal entities — each stake is listed separately for each foreign owner, which is why the two counts differ.
Every one of the 29 entries names the same manager: AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT”. The decree contains no sum, no valuation and no mention of a sale.
What the decree adds
The decree is a scan without a text layer; we read all seven pages. It amends two sections of the list.
Section III — shares in joint-stock companies gains entries 50 to 52, all three covering FM Logistic companies. Each covers 100 per cent of the shares: AO “FM Logistic Vostok” and AO “FM Logistic Customs”, both held by F.M LOGISTIC für Osteuropa Lagerverwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, and AO “FM Logistic Rus”, held by FM Logistic Corporate.
Section IV — stakes in limited liability companies gains entries 56 to 81, twenty-six of them, covering thirteen companies:
- OOO “AUCHAN” — 99.99858 per cent held by SOGEPAR and 0.00142 per cent by Meelacker B.V.
- OOO “Nestlé Rossiya” — 84.082 per cent held by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A. and 15.918 per cent by Nestlé Deutschland AG
- OOO “Nestlé Kuban” — 67.44 per cent and 32.56 per cent held by the same two owners
- OOO “Le Monlid” — 99.993 per cent held by Scenari Holding LP and 0.007 per cent by Groupe Adeo S.A.
- OOO “Enzhe Stroy” — 99.998 per cent held by NG Concept S.A.S. and 0.002 per cent by Batilogistic S.A.S.
- eight logistics companies of the Bati group — “Bati Azov”, “Bati Don”, “Bati Losino”, “Bati Sever”, “Bati Tolbino”, “Bati Sherna”, “Bati Yug” and “Batilogistic Rus” — each split between Batilogistic S.A.S. and Batilogistic Osteurop Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH
The splits inside the Bati group are not uniform. “Bati Azov”, “Bati Don”, “Bati Sherna” and “Bati Yug” are listed as 99 and 1 per cent; “Batilogistic Rus” as 99.82 and 0.18; “Bati Tolbino” as 84.295 and 15.705; “Bati Sever” as 61.5 and 38.5; “Bati Losino” as 63.21 and 36.79. Across all 29 entries, eleven distinct foreign owners are named.
Entry 56 shows the form every row takes — the property on the left, the manager on the right:
“99.99858 per cent of the stakes in the charter capital of the limited liability company ‘AUCHAN’, belonging to the company SOGEPAR (SOCIETE PAR ACTIONS SIMPLIFIEE SOGEPAR) — joint-stock company ‘L.E.V. MANAGEMENT’”
The decree took effect the day it was published:
“2. The present Decree enters into force on the day of its official publication.”
That was 17 September, the day it was signed.
One manager for all of it
The entry numbering shows how much was added at once. Section III ended at entry 49 before this decree and now ends at 52; section IV ended at 55 and now ends at 81.
What is unusual is not the length of the list but the name in the right-hand column. We read the two previous amendments to the same list in full. Decree No. 1011 of 31 December 2025 put Rockwool's two Russian companies — 100 per cent of OOO “ROCKWOOL” and 68 per cent of OOO “ROCKWOOL-VOLGA”, both held by ROCKWOOL A/S — under AO “Razvitie Stroitelnykh Aktivov”. Decree No. 1012 of the same day put Can-Pack's two — OOO “CAN-PACK”, held by CANPACK S.A., and OOO “Can-Pak Zavod Upakovki”, held by TAPON FRANCE — under OOO “StalElement”. Two decrees, two groups, two different managers, two entries each.
Decree 661 places sixteen companies under a single manager. They span unrelated businesses: a hypermarket chain, a food manufacturer, a DIY retailer, a contract logistics operator and a builder.
What is publicly known about that company does not come from the decree, which gives only its name. Vedomosti reports that AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT” has a charter capital of 15,000 roubles. Novaya Gazeta Europe reports that it has one employee, that its owners are not disclosed, and that its general director is Andrey Krayushkin, a major-general who until 2020 was a deputy head of the interior ministry's migration directorate. We did not verify any of this against the corporate registry, and the two outlets disagree about when the company was registered — Vedomosti says October 2024, Novaya Gazeta Europe says the end of 2025. We are reporting these as their claims, not as ours.
What temporary management does and does not do
Temporary management under decree 302 does not transfer ownership. The foreign owner remains the registered owner but loses the ability to exercise the rights that come with the stake — to appoint managers, decide what the company does with its money or take dividends out. The manager named in the right-hand column exercises those rights instead.
This is the first step of a chain we described yesterday from the other end. On 16 September the government put federally owned stakes in 28 companies up for sale, with buyers paying into a Treasury account — the point at which an asset finally becomes budget money, booked as non-oil-and-gas revenue. Decree 661 is at the opposite end of that chain: control moves first, and everything else, if it happens, happens later. We are not claiming these particular companies are headed for sale. Nothing in the decree says so, and we have not traced the route document by document.
The more immediate question is cash, not capital. OOO “AUCHAN” runs hypermarkets and OOO “Le Monlid” runs DIY stores — businesses that take money at the till every day. Whoever controls the company decides where the cash sits and whether a dividend leaves the country.
What this changes in our model
Nothing today, and possibly nothing ever in a way we can measure. Asset transfers are not one of our eight indicators, and a decree that names no sum cannot move one.
If it ever appears anywhere, it will be in the budget deficit, which scores 65 out of 100 with the rolling twelve-month deficit at 3.3% of GDP — and only if a sale happens and a price is published. Proceeds of that kind substitute for borrowing, so the number to compare them with would be the quarter's bond issuance, not the deficit itself.
The strength index stands at 47.3 out of 100, in the stress zone. Overdue receivables remain the weakest of the eight at 9, oil and gas revenue the second weakest at 14. The live state of all eight is on the monitor.
What we do not know
What any of it is worth. The decree carries no valuation, no price and no proceeds figure. Estimates published on 17 September — 120–125 bn roubles for Nestlé's Russian business excluding cash on its accounts, 160–170 bn including it, and 300–350 bn and 370–420 bn on the same two bases for the DIY chain — come from Mikhail Burmistrov of Infoline, quoted by Vedomosti. They are an analyst's estimates, not figures from official documents, and we are not adopting them.
Who stands behind AO “L.E.V. MANAGEMENT”. The decree names it and nothing more. Its ownership is not disclosed in the sources we read.
Whether one manager for sixteen companies is unprecedented. We read decree 661 and the two amendments immediately before it. We did not read every amendment made to the list under decree 302 since 2023 — its preamble cites more than thirty — so we can say what changed against the two most recent, not that nothing like this ever happened before.
Whether “Le Monlid” is the former Leroy Merlin. The decree gives the legal name and its two owners, Scenari Holding LP and Groupe Adeo S.A. Russian media identify the company as the one that traded as Leroy Merlin and now trades as Lemana Pro. Groupe Adeo is Leroy Merlin's parent, but the decree itself makes no such statement.
What happens next to any of these companies. Decree 302 sets no end date for temporary management, and decree 661 does not mention one. Nothing in the text says when, or on what condition, the foreign owners get their rights back.