The pro-Putin rapper took over the assets of Domino’s Pizza. He paid pennies
The pro-Putin rapper has acquired the assets of Domino’s Pizza in Russia after previously buying 130 Starbucks stores for just $6 million. Both companies withdrew from the Russian market after the attack on Ukraine.
Timati, a rapper known for his pro-Kremlin lyrics, and his business partner, a restaurateur, announced on Wednesday that they had acquired the Russian assets of Domino’s Pizza. Timati’s songs include a 2015 song with the refrain “President Putin is my best friend,” in which he praised him as a “fierce superhero.”
Pro-Russian rapper buys for next to nothing
Timati and his business partner, Anton Pinskiy, have acquired 120 pizzerias with 2,000 employees and will make only minor changes to the brand, according to Reuters. It will be called Domino Pizza and the “i” will be replaced with the corresponding Russian Cyrillic letter.
Pinsky told reporters that he and Timati had already invested hundreds of millions of rubles in this business. 100 million Russian rubles is equivalent to about $1 million.
Russian Starbucks
Last year, the couple also bought all 130 Russian Starbucks coffee shops and changed their name to Stars Coffee. Timati told The Wall Street Journal that it is “an entirely different brand” despite the similar logos. Investors paid just $6 million, according to Reuters.
The information about the sale of the pizzeria chain came nine days after DP Eurasia – the Domino company responsible for the Russian assets – announced that it was declaring bankruptcy after completing its attempts to find a buyer.
In a statement shared with American Business Insider, a DP Eurasia spokesman confirmed that the company had filed for bankruptcy and “no sale process to DP Russia has taken place.”
According to the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, the exodus of Western business from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine has resulted in Western entrepreneurs taking over $40 billion in assets at bargain prices.
