JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs announced Thursday they would be withdrawing from their Russian operations, joining more than 300 global brands boycotting Russia according to the Council of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO Council).
The banks are latecomers to the exodus from the Russian market.
The first major investor to divest from Russia was British oil major BP, which announced its plans to exit its 20% stake in Russian oil company Rosneft the last week of February, followed by Shell which said it would relinquish its joint ventures with energy company Gazprom and the financing of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.
Russia’s new fake news law seeking to limit outside reporting on the Russia-Ukraine conflict led various companies such as Netflix, Twitter, Meta and Youtube to ban content from Russian state media.
This was followed by a wave of household consumer brands such as Apple, Samsung and Chanel closing stores, stopping shipments or pausing sales in Russia, as well as entertainment brands such as Disney, Sony Universal Pictures and WarnerMedia pulling planned movie releases.
The Russian market has also been abandoned by Visa, Mastercard and American Express as well as Fedex, UPS and big name consultancies KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, EY and McKinsey.
