Swiss insurance company Chubb Ltd. with the bulk of its operations in the United States plans to increase its quarterly dividend by 5.8% to $0.91 per share.
According to the company’s press release, the board of directors recommended that shareholders at the annual meeting approve this amount of dividends for the current year.
Payments for the fourth quarter of $0.86 per share will be made on April 5. The share register is scheduled to close on March 15.
The dividend yield on Chubb’s securities after the increase in payments will be about 1.4% based on the quotes at the close of trading on Wednesday ($251.96).
The price of the insurer’s securities during the previous session on Thursday fell by 0.7%. Over the past three months, the company’s capitalization has increased by 11.2% (to $102.2 billion), while the S&P 500 stock index has added 9.3% over the same period.
Net immigration of people from Ukraine to Germany in 2023 amounted to 121 thousand people, which is almost eight times less compared to the 2022 figure of 960 thousand, but still more than an order of magnitude higher than the pre-war figures: in 2019-2021, net immigration amounted to 5-7 thousand people per year, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Thursday.
Based on a special assessment of the preliminary results of migration statistics, it specified that in 2023, about 277 thousand immigrants from Ukraine and 156 thousand departures to Ukraine were recorded, while in 2022, about 1.1 million people arrived from Ukraine and 138 thousand returned.
Last year, the lowest net immigration was recorded in April-May – 3-3.5 thousand monthly due to the increase in departures to 15.7-16.1 thousand, the highest – in January-February, 18-18.9 thousand.
In September and October 2023, net immigration after the spring-summer downturn rose to 10.7 thousand and 14.1 thousand, respectively, due to a decrease in the number of those returning to Ukraine, but in November and December it fell to 10.6 thousand and 7.3 thousand, respectively, due to a decrease in arrivals to 20.9 thousand and 17.3 thousand, respectively.
Destatis noted that the age and gender distribution of immigrants from Ukraine in 2023 changed compared to 2022: the share of women and girls among entrants decreased to 53% from 63% a year earlier, immigrants under 18 years of age decreased to 28% from 35%, while the share of immigrants between 18 and 60 years of age increased to 61% from 54%. The share of immigrants from Ukraine aged 60 and over was 11% in both 2022 and 2023.
Thus, according to the statistical office, 61% of immigrants from Ukraine from 2022 are women, 34% are minors. It is specified that, according to the preliminary results of the microcensus, about 40% of those who immigrated by the middle of 2023 were single parents and their children.
“The high level of immigration from Ukraine has led to the fact that the population with Ukrainian citizenship in Germany increased from 138 thousand people in January 2022 to 1.15 million people in October 2023. The share of Ukrainians in the total population increased from 0.2% to 1.4% over the same period,” Destatis pointed out.
According to his data, in October 2023, citizens of Ukraine were the second largest group of foreign population in Germany after citizens of Turkey (1.6%, or 1.39 million people).
It is noted that the highest share of the Ukrainian population – in Hamburg and Berlin: since January 2022, it has increased respectively from 0.21% to 1.67% and from 0.37% to 1.61%.
In October 2023, most Ukrainians lived in the most populous federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (234 thousand), Bavaria (168 thousand), Baden-Württemberg (159 thousand) and Lower Saxony (114 thousand). However, if we look at the share of Ukrainians in the total population of the respective federal states, a different picture emerges: in addition to Hamburg and Berlin, the largest share of Ukrainians was also in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (1.54%), Saarland (1.52%), Thuringia and Bremen (1.51% each). Rhineland-Palatinate, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg (1.2% each) were the least populous, followed by Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia (1.3% each).
According to Eurostat data, Germany has granted temporary protection status to 1 million 251.25 thousand Ukrainian refugees at the beginning of 2024 and has been leading Europe in this indicator for many months. A year earlier, there were 936.38 thousand of them, and at that time the first place was occupied by Poland, where 956.76 thousand people had such a status.
Sukha Balka mine (Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro region), part of Aleksandr Yaroslavsky’s DCH group, commissioned two longwalls for iron ore production in February.
According to a report in DCH Steel’s corporate newspaper on Thursday, miners at Yubileynaya Mine commissioned two new blocks that will ensure the company’s operation in the near future.
According to the approved plans for 2024, the commissioning of new facilities at Yubileynaya mine in February, two blocks were put into operation – 36-42, 3rd floor of the Gnezdo deposit and block 1-4 of the Main deposit at the 1420m horizon.
The total reserves of the two blocks amount to 332 thousand tons of ore.
Blocks 36-42 have already started producing crude ore, and mining in blocks 1-4, which contain about 220 thousand tons of ore, will begin next week.
The commissioning of the two blocks will ensure stable ore production at Yubileynaya mine for six months.
DMZ specializes in the production of steel, pig iron, rolled products and products made from them. On March 1, 2018, DCH Group signed an agreement to buy Dnipro Metallurgical Plant from Evraz.
Sukha Balka mine is one of the leading mining companies in Ukraine. It produces iron ore using an underground method. The mine includes Yubileynaya and Frunze mines. Frunze mine.
DCH Group acquired the mine from Evraz Group in May 2017.
The Ministry of Education and Science invites architects to take part in a competition for school renovation projects.
“Teams of architects can submit design ideas for the competition. The design project developed by the winner of the competition will be available for free to all communities. Its availability will allow donors to speed up decision-making on financing school reconstruction, and communities to save time and money,” the ministry’s press service said.
It is noted that the authors of the three best project ideas will receive awards ranging from 8 thousand to 12 thousand euros, and the winner of the competition will sign a contract for 300 thousand euros, which provides for the development of an adaptive school design project.
According to the rules, a team wishing to participate in the competition must consist of at least two architects: one must be authorized to practice in Ukraine and the other must be authorized to practice abroad.
According to the report, the School of the Future for Ukraine project was initiated by the Lithuanian government in partnership with the State Agency for the Restoration and Development of Infrastructure of Ukraine with the assistance of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine.
Within the first competitions of the NEXT Romania-Ukraine cross-border communities development program for the period 2021-2027, 120 projects with a non-refundable value of EUR87 million have been submitted, according to the project’s press service.
The press service of the Romanian Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration told Interfax-Ukraine that the submitted projects include 153 partners from Romania and 158 from Ukraine.
The Interreg NEXT Romania-Ukraine program has a budget of EUR54 million in grant funds, to which the national contribution will be added. Projects that will benefit border communities in Satu Mare, Maramures, Botosani, Suceava and Tulcea counties (Romania), as well as in Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattya, Chernivtsi and Odessa regions (Ukraine) will be eligible for funding.
According to the press service, a call for standard projects (projects with an infrastructure component of at least EUR500,000) was announced in August 2023. EUR12.6 mln allocated for this competition will be used for investments in healthcare and education. Within the framework of the competition 49 projects were submitted, the grant value of which is EUR60 mln.
The Small Projects Competition was launched in September 2023. This competition has a budget of EUR14.5 million, which will be directed to measures on climate change prevention and control, biodiversity conservation, health, education and border management. Seventy-one projects were submitted, with a total value of EUR27 million in grant funds.
According to the press service of the Romanian Ministry of Development, Public Works and Administration, the most applications – 29 standard and 13 small – were submitted in the direction of ensuring equal access to health care and increasing the sustainability of health care systems, including primary health care, as well as promoting the transition from institutional to family-based care.
The second most popular focus area is educational. 20 standard and 17 small projects were designed to improve equitable access to inclusive and quality education, training and lifelong learning services through the development of accessible infrastructure.
15 small projects focused on improving the protection and conservation of nature, biodiversity and green infrastructure, including in urban areas; 13 small projects focused on disaster risk prevention, strengthening resilience through ecosystem approaches.
Border crossing management was addressed by 13 small projects submitted.
The projects will be subjected to an evaluation and selection procedure in the following period.At this stage, a detailed analysis of the submitted projects is underway and the results of the selection process will be presented tentatively in early summer, with contracts ideally signed by the first quarter of 2025, but “the actual duration of the process will also depend on the quality of the applications submitted and the number of clarifications required”.
All submitted projects will go through two stages of evaluation: eligibility and quality. Applications that pass all these stages will be subject to approval by the Monitoring Committee (a joint structure composed of members from both countries).
Funding will be awarded to projects that best meet the requirements of the Applicant’s Guidelines and that will actually contribute to community development in the border region.
Interreg NEXT, the EU’s cooperation programs with neighboring regions, comprises 184 regions with a population of 260 million people in 33 countries and is located along the EU’s external borders from the northern periphery to the Mediterranean region and from the Atlantic to the Black Sea basin.
Interreg NEXT cooperation programs for the period 2021-2027 include EUR1.1 billion from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) and the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA).
CLIMATE CHANGE, cross-border communities, EDUCATION, HEALTH, Interreg NEXT
KSG Agro and Genesus Ukraine LLC (Kyiv) have signed a one-year contract for the supply of 3.5 thousand head of Canadian-bred pigs of Genesus breeding, the press service of the agricultural holding reported.
According to the report, Genesus Ukraine undertook to supply 3.5 thousand heads of purebred and hybrid pigs GP (Yorkshire) and F1 (Yorkshire + Landrace) to the pig farms of KSG Agro in 2024. In addition, 30 heads of purebred boars of the Duroc and Landrace breeds will be supplied under the agreement. The first delivery of pigs is expected on March 1, 2024.
“We have repeatedly noted the qualitative advantages of Canadian Genesus pigs, which are superior to their European counterparts in terms of litter size, farrowing weight and meat quality. This year, we will continue the process of renewing the pig herd, which began in 2023 and is aimed at improving the quality characteristics of the herd. These include improving the health of piglets and improving the taste of meat,” said Sergiy Kasyanov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KSG Agro.
“Our company has been cooperating with KSG Agro, one of the leaders in the Ukrainian pig breeding market, for three years now. And this year our cooperation is reaching a new level in terms of volume. This once again proves in practice that Genesus pigs are hardy, grow quickly and develop well, producing the maximum possible number of kilograms of piglets per square meter of farm,” said Genesus representative in Ukraine Yevhen Shatokhin.
KSG Agro noted that the main quality indicators of Canadian Genesus pigs are 2.55 farrowings per year, 16 piglets born, the average weaning age is 21 days, and the average weaning weight is 6-6.3 kg.
KSG Agro, a vertically integrated holding company, is engaged in pig production, as well as the production, storage, processing and sale of grains and oilseeds. Its land bank is about 21 thousand hectares in Dnipropetrovska and Kherson regions.
According to the agricultural holding, it is one of the top 5 pork producers in Ukraine. In 2023, it launched a “network-centric” strategy, which will move from developing a large location to a number of smaller pork production facilities located in different regions of Ukraine.
In January-September 2023, KSG Agro earned $1,336 million in net profit, which is almost 14 times more than in the same period in 2022. Its EBITDA for the three quarters of this year increased by 67% to $4.5 million, and sales revenue increased by 16% to $11.9 million.
Genesus is the world’s largest privately held genetics company specializing in the breeding of pigs. Genesus is headquartered in Manitoba, Canada. The company’s nucleus and breeding farms are located in many countries around the world, including Canada, the United States, China, Thailand, the Philippines, France, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Genesus Ukraine LLC supplies pigs from the UK and Canada, and in Ukraine owns pig breeding facilities at Agrarian Company 2004 LLC (Popovtsi, Khmelnytsky region), which is part of the Vitagro agricultural holding.
According to the Unified Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiary of Genesus Ukraine is Andriy Zaretskyi (Kyiv).
