French carmaker to sell Russian operations to Moscow

Russia will take control of French car manufacturer Renault’s operations in the country and resurrect a Soviet-era auto brand, officials said Monday, marking the first major nationalization of a foreign business since the war in Ukraine began.

Renault said it would sell its majority stake in Avtovaz, a Russian car company best known for its Lada brand, to a state-run research institute known as NAMI.

Renault’s other Russia operations, primarily a factory in Moscow, will be sold to the Moscow city government. The mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, said the city would bring back the Moskvich brand for cars made at the factory. Moskvich was a major auto brand in the Soviet Union but went into steep decline in the 1990s and vanished from the market in the early 2000s.

Renault didn’t give any financial details of its sales but said the deal included an option to buy back the Avtovaz stake in the next six years.