Honestly, if you're looking for Wimm-Bill-Dann stock on the New York Stock Exchange today, you’re going to be staring at a "ticker not found" screen. Or worse, you’ll end up looking at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), which snagged the old ticker symbol years ago.
It’s kinda wild to think about now. There was a time when Wimm-Bill-Dann (WBD) was the absolute darling of emerging market investors. It was the first Russian consumer goods company to list in New York, way back in 2002. They had this weird, catchy name that sounded like Wimbledon, a logo with a cute little bird, and they basically owned the Russian refrigerator.
But if you’re holding onto some old paper certificates or wondering why the charts stopped moving, here’s the reality: Wimm-Bill-Dann stock doesn't exist anymore. ## Why the Wimm-Bill-Dann Stock Story Ended
The "death" of the stock wasn't a bankruptcy. It was actually one of the biggest paydays in Russian corporate history. In 2010, PepsiCo decided they didn't just want to sell soda in Russia—they wanted to be the biggest food and beverage player in the entire country.
To do that, they needed Wimm-Bill-Dann.
The $5.4 Billion Deal
PepsiCo, led at the time by Indra Nooyi, dropped a massive $3.8 billion to buy an initial 66% stake. By the time they finished the "squeeze-out" of minority shareholders in 2011, the total enterprise value was pegged at around $5.4 billion.
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If you were a shareholder back then, you did pretty well. PepsiCo paid $33.00 per American Depositary Share (ADS). That was a 32% premium over the 30-day average trading price. By September 2011, PepsiCo owned 100% of the company, and the Wimm-Bill-Dann stock was officially delisted from the NYSE and the Russian Trading System.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Company
There’s this common misconception that when a company gets bought by a giant like PepsiCo, the original brand just dissolves into the corporate borg. That's not what happened here.
Wimm-Bill-Dann was built by Sergei Plastinin and Mikhail Dubinin. They started in 1992 with a $50,000 loan and a leased juice line. They created "J7," which became Russia's first iconic juice brand.
When PepsiCo took over, they didn't kill the brands. They leaned into them. Brands like Chudo (which means "Wonder"), Domik v Derevne ("House in the Country"), and Agusha (baby food) stayed exactly where they were.
The Weird Truth About the Name
Why "Wimm-Bill-Dann"?
You've probably heard people joke that it sounds like the tennis tournament. Well, that’s exactly why they chose it. In the early 90s, Russian consumers were skeptical of domestic products. They wanted Western quality. The founders picked a name that sounded British or American to trick people into thinking the juice was imported.
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It worked. It worked so well that even after everyone realized it was a Moscow-based company, they kept buying it because the quality actually held up.
Can You Still Invest in These Assets?
Since the Wimm-Bill-Dann stock is long gone, your only real way to have "exposure" to those assets for the last decade was through PepsiCo (PEP) shares. But even that has become incredibly complicated recently.
After the geopolitical shifts in 2022, PepsiCo suspended its "global" brands in Russia (like Pepsi and 7UP). However, they kept the "essential" side of the business running—which is exactly what Wimm-Bill-Dann is.
- Dairy is "Essential": PepsiCo continues to produce milk, yogurt, and baby food under the WBD umbrella.
- Profitability: In 2023, reports surfaced that Wimm-Bill-Dann’s net profit in Russia actually surged to 8.8 billion rubles (around $100 million at the time).
- The Trap: Even though the business is making money, that cash is largely "trapped" within Russia due to capital controls and sanctions.
So, if you’re a PepsiCo shareholder, you technically "own" the remains of Wimm-Bill-Dann, but you’re not seeing much of that benefit in your quarterly dividends right now.
What Happened to the Founders?
People often wonder what happens to the "garage startup" guys after a multi-billion dollar exit.
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Sergei Plastinin, one of the main faces of the company, didn't just retire to a beach. He became a major figure in other industries and is famously the father of fashion designer Kira Plastinina. He used a chunk of his WBD fortune to launch her brand globally, though that venture had its own roller-coaster trajectory.
The other founders mostly faded into the high-stakes world of private Russian investment. They got out at the absolute peak. Looking back, selling a Russian dairy company for over $5 billion in 2011 looks like one of the smartest "exit" timings in history.
The Actionable Reality for Investors
If you stumble across an old brokerage statement mentioning WBD or Wimm-Bill-Dann, here is what you need to do:
- Check for Unclaimed Funds: If you held the stock during the 2011 buyout and never received your $33 per share, those funds are likely sitting in an "escheatment" account with your state’s treasurer or the bank that handled the ADR (likely Deutsche Bank or BNY Mellon).
- Stop Looking for the Ticker: The ticker WBD now belongs to Warner Bros. Discovery. Buying it will give you Batman and CNN, not Russian yogurt.
- Evaluate PepsiCo Differently: If you are looking at PepsiCo as a stock today, you have to discount the Russian assets. While Wimm-Bill-Dann is still a leader in the Russian dairy market, those earnings are increasingly isolated from the Western financial system.
- Watch the "Essential" Loophole: The WBD story is a case study in how "essential foods" are treated differently than "luxury goods" during international conflicts.
The story of Wimm-Bill-Dann stock is basically a mirror of the Russian economy itself: a wild, hopeful rise in the 90s, a massive Western integration in the 2000s, and a complicated, localized reality today. It’s gone from the NYSE to a subsidiary of a multinational that’s trying to figure out its next move in a fractured world.
Final Check on Your Old Shares
If you still have physical certificates—which some people kept as souvenirs—they are essentially worthless as legal tender or equity. They’ve been cancelled for over a decade. Your only path to value is proving you were a "beneficial owner" at the time of the PepsiCo merger.
Locate your records from 2011. Contact the transfer agent listed on the back of the certificate. If they can't help, search "Unclaimed Property" in the state where you lived when you bought the shares.
Most people already got their payout, but in the world of stock market dust, there’s always someone who missed the memo. Just don't expect to see that bird logo back on the Big Board anytime soon.