(Bloomberg) -- The Kremlin is giving foreign companies a way out of Russia at a price, to help bolster the state budget amid surging wartime expenditure.

Businesses seeking to sell their Russian assets now face a mandatory contribution to the budget even if they offload them for a symbolic sum or even zero. That’s because under the rules introduced last week a donation equal to at least 10% of the market value of a company must be paid if the seller offers it at a discount of 90% or more.

In practice, local buyers of the assets are covering the cost of the budget donation as part of any deal with foreign companies, according to people familiar with the terms of recent transactions, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public. 

The measure is sensitive for international companies eager to avoid any perception that they may be contributing to President Vladimir Putin’s war chest as they strive to leave the country in response to the invasion of Ukraine. The US has warned American companies engaged in sale agreements that “involve a payment of such an ‘exit tax’” that they need to obtain a specific license from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to comply with sanctions regulations against Russia.

It’s more than a year since Putin banned foreign companies from selling their assets in Russia without approval from a special government commission, in response to unprecedented international sanctions over his war in Ukraine. Rules put in place in December obliged businesses to sell their assets at a discount of at least 50% of market value as Russia sought to discourage a stampede by foreign companies out of the country.

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There were 109 such deals in total last year, as companies from countries including the US, Finland, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Cyprus and Sweden left the Russian market, data from the Russian AK&M agency shows. So far this year, deals have included Norway’s Wenaas Hotel Russia AS selling to Sistema Group for 200 million euro, the disposal of 11 Henkel AG & Co. plants and the Russian operations of Nokian Tyres.

“Nokian Tyres has not paid and will not pay any compensation to the Russian state in connection with leaving Russia,” a spokesperson for the company said. “Any possible taxes are at the buyer’s responsibility.”

As Russia’s economy gradually adapts to the shock from sanctions, the government is shifting emphasis to plugging holes in the state budget amid a slump in revenues from energy sales following the oil price cap introduced by the Group of Seven nations and the European Union and the decline in gas exports to Europe.

Under the revised rules introduced in March, a budget contribution of no less than 10% of the discounted market value of the assets must be made to gain approval for any deals. This rises to 10% of the full market value if the seller discounts the asset’s value by 90% or more.

What Bloomberg Economics says...

“New rules are likely closing a loophole which allowed the parties to the deal to minimize their contribution to the budget by stating an artificially low deal price. Now that their contribution will be determined on the basis of the asset’s fair value, estimated by independent third party from a whitelist composed by the Finance Ministry, it is no longer feasible to understate the true price of the deal.”

—Alexander Isakov, Russia economist.

Russia’s state budget is forecast to run a deficit of 2% of gross domestic product this year. If the volume of asset sales by foreign companies approaches last year’s total of $15-20 billion, then the state may collect an additional 110-150 billion rubles ($1.4-$1.9 billion) in 2023 under the new regulations, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.

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The new rules are “clarifying the mechanism for exit from Russian assets together with a calculation formula” to make the process clearer for foreign investors leaving Russia and buyers of their assets, according to Andrey Voronin, chairman of the Expert Council on Corporate Governance in the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “I would not call it introducing a punishment,” he said.

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