After Russia’s war on Ukraine prompted international condemnation last year, over 1,000 companies, from McDonald’s to Visa, began curtailing their Russian operations, and real estate industry titans were not exempt from the pressure. CBRE, Colliers, Cushman & Wakefield, and JLL to come up with an exit strategy. And now, Hines is following suit.
Hines had been contemplating whether or not to leave Russia since last March, as decision to exit was not an easy one for the firm to make. Hines has been making investments in Russia since the 1990s, currently manages $2.3 billion in assets, and employs 236 people there. But in recent months, the enterprise has been quietly selling off Russian assets. On its website, 11 assets owned or managed in the nation were listed at the time of the invasion in February of last year. As of now, only nine are listed.
Ducat Place III, a 14-story office skyscraper in Moscow, and Phase 2 of the outlet village Belaya Dacha on the outskirts of Moscow are assets that have disappeared from Hines’ website. But as far as a timeline to offload the rest of their Russian properties (which include one outlet mall in St. Petersburg, two outlet malls close to Moscow, a logistics project in Moscow, and two additional office buildings in Moscow), Hines is staying mum.
