senator Kanokov became a co-owner of the chain “Delicious and point”

The former head of Kabardino-Balkaria, and the current member of the Federation Council from this region, Arsen Kanokov, through his close associates, is a co-owner of the company “Vkusno i Tochka”, which bought McDonald’s restaurants after the American corporation withdrew from the Russian market after the Russian large-scale invasion of Ukraine. This is confirmed in the investigation by the publication “Project”.

The restaurants were officially sold to Alexander Govor, an entrepreneur from Novokuznetsk, who registered the brand “Vkusno i Tochka”. In December of last year, as “Project” notes, the Times of Israel published an alleged transcript of a recording of a telephone conversation of Russian businessman Magomed Musaev, in which he says that he “helped Kanokov get McDonald’s, the coolest company.” Musaev’s representatives then stated that the publication was “based on compiled audio files.”

The “Project” studied the auditor’s report on the “Delicious and Point” report and found that Govor owns only 51% of the company’s shares, and the rest belongs to “other” shareholders. In the board of directors of five people, Govor is represented by only two directors, and two more, as the “Project” claims, are closely related to Kanokov – they are the president and vice-president of the Syndika holding, which is connected to him, Oleg Eskindarov and Yegor Solomatyn. “Thus, the interests of Kanokov and Govor are represented in the board of directors of Vkusno i Tochka by two directors each, which may indicate that the restaurant chain belongs to them almost equally,” the publication concludes. Kanokov’s participation in the company was also confirmed by the anonymous source of “Proekta”. According to a number of reports, some of the shares may also belong to people from the entourage of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, however, “Proekt” admits that it has little evidence of this version.

As the “Project” notes, formally, as a senator, Kanokov does not have the right to engage in business, but “his family company controls many important assets”, including in the field of retail, hotel and restaurant business. After the start of the war, she got shares in companies that bought out the Russian divisions of Starbucks and OBI. At the same time, as “Proekt” claims, people from Kadyrov’s entourage, Valid Korchagin (presumably a relative of State Duma deputy Adam Delymkhanov) and Sergey Kropachyov, participated in these transactions together with Kanokov. Korchagin, among other things, is listed as the owner of the Mariupol plant named after Ilyich in the occupied part of the Donetsk region.

“Proekt” notes that Kanokov, Govor and Delymkhanov did not respond to his requests.