Sailing through the storm – performance of Russian manufacturing subsidiaries of multinational corporations in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to depict the performance of Russian manufacturing subsidiaries of multinational corporations during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a unique handcrafted database of financial reports from 259 subsidiaries for 2019 and 2020, we retraced three indicators of business robustness: the dynamics of revenues, positive profitability, and the level of financial solvency. Most of the studied subsidiaries (85%) were able to withstand the crisis and maintain satisfactory financial solvency. Revenues decreased in 2020 to 40% of the studied subsidiaries, and the share of loss-making subsidiaries reached 31%. However, more than 40% of the studied subsidiaries achieved both an increase in revenues and positive profitability of sales in 2020. In this respect we may assess the level of ‘ownership advantage’ of multinational corporations regarding assisting their subsidiaries to achieve different elements of business robustness during the pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• manufacturing subsidiaries
• business performance
• robustness
• Russia

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Alexander Arshavskiy and Galina Balashova for their valuable assistance in preparing the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was undertaken with support of a research grant of the Graduate School of Business, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow within the project ‘Russian subsidiaries of foreign multinational corporations’ (project 2021.003SP.1)