Almira, the announced buyer, is registered at the same address as the two firms of Senator Madina Kanokova’s daughter. Interestingly, the FAS approved the deal on the eve of Kanokov’s birthday on February 21. The Sindika holding of the Kanokovs is actively investing in such trading assets in 2022-2023, it has already received Starbucks (now Stars Coffee) and OBI.
There are over a thousand KFC outlets in Russia, and most are owned by Russian franchise owners (the right to operate the chain costs 11 percent of revenue). About a third of the points before the Ukrainian conflict belonged to foreigners – the American company Yum Brands and the Polish holding AmRest. The American Yum sold its 70 KFC restaurants to entrepreneurs from Izhevsk, leaving 214 “Polish” outlets on the market.
This week, the authorities approved a deal to sell them to the Russian company Almira. The deal, worth about 100 million euros, has not been closed, and the media are wondering who is behind it. Assumptions were published about the connections of Almira with Voentorg, but they turned out to be incorrect: we are talking about another Almira. According to a representative of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the transaction involves Almira LLC, located near Moscow, owned by Oksana Mokaeva from Nalchik (aka Oksana Kanokova, follows from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the owner changed her last name in the fall).
Oksana Mokaeva-Kanokova is close to the 66-year-old senator and former head of Kabardino-Balkaria Arsen Kanokov.
He has been involved in the food trade since the 1980s; it was reported that he controlled a number of markets in Moscow in the 90s thanks to connections with ex-mayor Yuri Luzhkov. Kanokov’s business is now recorded mainly in his daughter Madina, Artur Kardanov (considered a nephew) and another relative Zaur Kanokov. Behind them are about a hundred companies from the real estate, trade, hotel industry, and agriculture, which make up the “Sindica” holding. From unusual investments: in 2019, through Madina Kanokova, the clan invested in the startup “School of a Billionaire” of the Russian edition of Forbes (since 2018, controlled by Magomed Musaev).
Oksana Mokaeva-Kanokova is also among the clan’s trusted representatives. She has an account on Vkontakte for the Sindica spa hotel in Nalchik (LLC Kabbalk-Intourist, Kabardino-Balkaria), which is part of the Sindica holding of the Kanokovs. The hotel website indicates that Mokaeva is the deputy general director for legal issues, she has been working as a lawyer in this hotel for more than 10 years.
The new owner of a part of KFC establishments in Russia – Almira LLC (TIN 2632090154) – was previously registered in the Stavropol Territory, then changed its registration to Nalchik, and since 2018 its legal address is: 143082, Moscow Region, Odintsovo, Razdory , 65th km of the Moscow Ring Road, administration building, room 14. It completely coincides with the address of Maxi Alliance LLC, which belongs to Madina Kanokova. Her other company, Mycotrade, has almost the same address, only “room 2”. This address used to be the Sindika shopping center (it burned down in 2017).
Madina Kanokova adds her second surname Kakhado: she married a Circassian American, photographer Jabakh Kakhado, in the summer of 2014 she bought a house in New Jersey with him for $ 2.7 million and, apparently, received US citizenship (as did four grandchildren of Arsen Kanokov). Against the backdrop of criticism, as Octagon noted, Madina transferred the entire house to her husband in December 2022, the changes in the real estate register are reflected on February 2, 2023. However, the family of Kanokov’s daughter still lives in the United States, judging by her social networks.
Historically, Kanokov was especially interested in markets in different cities, but by the end of the 2010s, he began to “clean up” this portfolio. The Sindika group has noticeably revived recently, acquiring retail assets of outgoing well-known Western brands. Perhaps these decisions were influenced by the new generation of Kanokovs.
In 2022, Sindika bought the Russian coffee shop chain from Starbucks, along with rapper Timati and his restaurateur friend Anton Pinsky. With the same Pinsky and another restaurateur Arkady Novikov (he is the partner of the Kanokovs in the Vysota 5642 network), Sindika acquired the Globus Gourmet supermarket chain in August. In January 2023, it became known about the purchase of local assets of the German household goods chain OBI.
It is possible that purchases are paid for with loans from state-owned banks – VTB or Sberbank: the Kanokovs have relations with them in a number of projects, besides, VTB was among those who wanted to buy KFC (VTB and the structures of the son-in-law of Minister Sergey Lavrov, Alexander Vinokurov, already have two hundred KFC outlets through LLC “International Restaurant Brands”), but he was denied due to sanctions. Sindika usually prefers not to officially announce deals: instead of press releases, copies of relevant publications from business media appear on its website.