The British company is leaving Russia – part of the team is already in Tbilisi
The British electric car manufacturing company Arrival, which was founded by the Russian billionaire, the former head of Yota and the former deputy minister of communications of Russia, Denis Sverdlov, will stop operating in Russia. The Financial Times reports on this. The publication writes based on the vice-president of Arrival, Tom Elvidge, that the company does not plan business activities in Russia in the future. According to him, part of the team of developers has already been transferred to Tbilisi.
He says that the company started the process of leaving Russia in the first days of the war in Ukraine. Elvidge said the company has a team in Russia working on software for electric cars. According to his own words, Sverdlov opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the beginning.
“Dennis has come out publicly and made it clear that he and Arrival are opposed to what’s happening in Ukraine,” Elvidge said when asked about the possibility of sanctions against the company. According to him, most of the Russian team of the British company is already in Georgia and an office has been opened for them in Tbilisi. According to Arrival’s vice president, the process of completing operations in Russia will continue for several more months.
I will tell you that Arrival was founded in 2015 by Denis Sverdlov, the former Deputy Minister of Communications of Russia and the former head of Yota. Among the company’s investors are Hyundai, Kia, and the BlackRock fund. Among its clients is the largest shipping and delivery company United Parcel Service, which signed a contract with the manufacturer for the purchase of 10,000 electric cars. In 2021, Arrival was estimated at 13.6 billion dollars. As of December 28 of the same year, Arrival’s capitalization on the Nasdaq was $5.1 billion, and Sverdlov’s fortune was estimated by Forbes at $3.7 billion.