Plastic production in Europe in 2023 decreased by 8.3%, according to the industry organization Plastics Europe. According to its managing director, Virginia Janssens, the decline was stronger than expected.
At the same time, global plastic production grew by 3.4%, in particular due to the scale-up of production in China and the United States. According to S&P Global, China accounted for 60% of the growth in petrochemical capacity last year.
The share of European suppliers in the global market will decline to 12% in 2023 from 28% in 2006. In addition, due to declining demand, the volume of mechanical plastic recycling in Europe last year fell for the first time since 2018, Plastics Europe noted. This is the most common recycling method in the region.
In October, the industry organization Plastics Recyclers Europe pointed out the alarming nature of the downward trend in the European plastic recycling market, which is why many companies are leaving it. Among other things, the market is under pressure from an oversupply of virgin plastic outside Europe.
Businesses are also dissatisfied with European legislation aimed at achieving ambitious climate goals. According to the companies, it is “stifling growth,” the FT writes. American ExxonMobil (SPB: XOM) and Saudi Arabia’s SABIC this year announced their intention to close petrochemical plants in Europe. LyondellBasell, Versalis, and Trinseo are also going to close their sites or revise their plans for them.
The industrial and technical company Agromat LLC, which placed a public issue of three-year H series bonds for UAH 100 million in early October, will start placing a similar I series issue for another UAH 100 million on November 19.
“The funds to be raised from the public offering will be used by the issuer to expand its retail network,” the prospectus says.
According to the prospectus, the nominal interest rate on the bonds with three-month coupons is set at 16.35% p.a. for the first year of circulation, and 3-months for the next two years. UIRD +5.45 p.p. (Ukrainian index of rates on deposits of individuals UIRD3-month +5.45 percentage points (p.p.).
The bonds with a nominal value of UAH thousand will be placed at par through the PFTS exchange, the investment firm is state-owned Ukrgasbank. The maturity date is from November 16 to 18, 2027.
The nominal interest rate of the previous issue of series H, registered by the National Securities and Stock Market Commission on September 6 this year, was set at 16.5% per annum in the first year of circulation. The bonds were placed between September 30 and October 2, and are scheduled to mature on September 27-29, 2027.
Almost simultaneously, on September 25, 2024, Agromat started to redeem UAH 100 million of G series bonds issued in 2021, which allowed the NSSMC to cancel the registration of this issue on October 24.
“Agromat is engaged in the production and sale of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware, registered in 1993. The issuer operates in 25 outlets, including 10 in Kyiv, including a specialized shopping center for the sale of ceramic tiles and sanitary ware with a total area of more than 8,000 square meters.
According to the prospectus, the company’s co-owners with 28.65% each are CEO Serhiy Voitenko, Oksana Reva and Anatoliy Taday, with another 10.05% owned by Olga Bashota and 4% by Nadiya Rusheliuk.
The company’s revenue grew by 13.5% to UAH 1 billion 506.74 million in the first half of this year, while net profit decreased by 2.8 times to UAH 15.62 million.
According to the prospectus, this year Agromat would like to increase its net income to UAH 3 billion 263.07 million, and next year – to UAH 3 billion 552.53 million, and net profit – to UAH 124.32 million and UAH 135 million, respectively, with assets of about UAH 2.64 billion and EBITDA of UAH 297 million.
The company’s main long-term lender at 9% and 17% is Kredobank, with UAH 98 million as of mid-year, and another UAH 3.3 million was due to ProCredit Bank at 17%.
While the short-term loan portfolio totaling UAH 544 million includes loans from six banks at rates of 14.8% to 16.5%, compared to 18.5-19.5% at the beginning of the year: Raiffeisen – UAH 199 million, ProCredit – UAH 106 million, OTP – UAH 86 million, Credit Agricole – UAH 73 million, FUIB – UAH 45 million and Pivdenny – UAH 35 million.
IMC Agroholding completed the corn harvest on November 17, which was the fastest time to complete the harvest of grains and oilseeds in the company over the past 10 years, the company’s press service reported.
According to the report, about 611 thsd tonnes of corn were harvested from an area of 65.7 thsd ha with a yield of 9.3 t/ha. The corn yield is also significantly higher than the national average, which, according to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, is 6.3 t/ha.
“The current yield cannot be called a record, although it is almost one and a half times higher than the national average, but the low moisture content of corn (17.8%) made it possible to significantly reduce the cost of grain drying and logistics, which, together with good prices, gives confidence in a good financial result,” commented Bogdan Krivitsky, Chief Operating Officer of IMC.
As reported, in the 2024 season, IMC grew spring crops on 90 thou hectares, of which 65.8 thou hectares were allocated for corn and 24.2 thou hectares for sunflower. The agricultural holding completed sunflower harvesting in the last days of September. The company produced 77.7 thousand tons of gross harvest with a yield 60% higher than the national average of 3.2 t/ha.
IMC Agro Holding is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine) in the crop production, elevators and warehouses segments. The Group’s land bank is about 120 thousand hectares and storage capacity is 554 thousand tons, with the 2023 harvest of 1.002 million tons.
In 2023, IMC posted a net loss of $21.03 million compared to $1.12 million a year earlier, and its EBITDA decreased 11.3 times to $3.22 million. Revenue increased by 22.3% to $139.45 million, while the share of exports decreased to 68% from 73% a year earlier.
In January-September 2024, “ARX Life” Insurance Company (ARX Life, Kyiv) collected insurance premiums in the amount of UAH 251.2 million, which is 7.03% more than in the same period a year earlier.
This was reported by RA “Standard-Rating” on its website in the information on the company’s credit rating/insurer financial strength (reliability) rating update at the level of “uaAAA” on the national scale.
The volume of payments and reimbursements made by the insurer in the first half of the year decreased by 10.21% to UAH 44.382 million. Thus, the insurer’s claims ratio decreased by 3.39 percentage points to 17.67%.
The insurer’s acquisition expenses for the first three quarters of 2024 decreased by 4.99% to UAH 134.587 million compared to the same period in 2023.
Net profit amounted to UAH 60.908 million, which is 31.01% more than the net profit for 9 months of 2023.
As of October 1, 2024, the insurer’s assets increased by 24.55% to UAH 355.136 million, equity – by 28.76% to UAH 272.681 million, liabilities – by 12.41% to UAH 82.455 million, cash and cash equivalents – by 66.66% to UAH 65.756 million.
Thus, as of the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2024, the company had a high level of capitalization (330.7%), as well as the level of coverage of its liabilities by cash and cash equivalents (79.75%).
At the same time, RA notes that as of October 1, 2024, the insurer made financial investments in the amount of UAH 279.6 million. They consisted of government bonds and government bonds (89.43%) and deposits in banks (10.57%).
ARX Life is part of the international insurance holding Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. ARX Life is among the top ten companies in the life insurance market in Ukraine.
NEQSOL Holding, the owner of Ukraine’s second largest mobile operator VF Ukraine (Vodafone Ukraine), has paid UAH 3.94 billion to the state budget of Ukraine in full for the purchase of United Mining and Chemical Company (UMCC, Kyiv) at a privatization tender.
“The winner of the auction paid in full for the state-owned stake in the country’s largest producer of titanium raw materials. The new owner has also undertaken important investment commitments: to invest at least UAH 400 million in the modernization of production, which will ensure the further development of the enterprise,” the SPF said in a statement on Monday.
For his part, NEQSOL Holding’s Regional Director Volodymyr Lavrenchuk noted that the international group of companies, which does business in 11 countries, is taking the steps required by law to complete the privatization process.
“As a strategic investor, we have already started negotiations with a number of specialized companies from the US, Australia, the UK and Canada to attract the best international experience to develop a new strategy for UMCC. This strategy provides for the fulfillment of privatization obligations, deep modernization and expansion in global markets,” he stressed.
The State Property Fund noted that the process of large-scale privatization continues, and on December 19, 2024, 100% of the state-owned share of the nationalized building materials producer Aerok LLC will be put up for sale at an online auction in the Prozorro.Sale electronic trading system with a starting price of UAH 965.3 million.
The SPF reminded that, including the sale of the Ukraina Hotel earlier this fall, the total amount of proceeds from large-scale privatization this year has already exceeded UAH 6.4 billion.
As reported, Cemin Ukraine LLC, controlled by NEQSOL Holding, was the only bidder for the purchase of the UMCC at the auction scheduled for October 9: it offered UAH 3 billion 938 million 351,581 thousand at the initial price of UAH 3 billion 899,358 million.
NEQSOL Holding is founded and owned by Azerbaijani citizen Nasib Hasanov. According to the holding’s website, in the 1990s, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, he started providing brokerage services, initially engaged in the supply of chemicals, developed business in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and other countries of the former USSR, and then in the supply of equipment for the oil and gas industry in the region.
After that, Hasanov used the accumulated capital to invest in the oil and gas industry of Azerbaijan, establishing his own company in this field. The holding’s enterprises in the energy sector are consolidated into two groups: Nobel Oil E&P (UK) Limited (trading name Nobel Upstream), which is engaged in exploration and production in the UK, the US and Azerbaijan, and Nobel Energy, which provides diversified integrated services to international oil and gas operators in the Caspian region and beyond.
The holding entered the telecommunications industry in 2005 by acquiring Bakcell, the first Azerbaijani telecommunications company, and in 2019 NEQSOL Holding bought Vodafone Ukraine. The holding also invests in various startups.
In the late 2000s, the group expanded its business portfolio by making a name for itself in the construction services and materials market, producing cement and related materials. Norm, founded in 2013, is the largest cement producer in the South Caucasus. Before the war, NEQSOL Holding was close to buying Ivano-Frankivskcement, Ukraine’s largest cement producer, but later abandoned the deal.
Currently, the group employs over 12,000 people in 11 countries, including the UK, USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the UAE. The company’s headquarters are located in Amsterdam, Baku and Kyiv.
UMCC started its actual operations in August 2014, when the Ukrainian government decided to transfer the property complexes of Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant (VGMK, Dnipropetrovska oblast) and Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant (IGOK, Zhytomyrska oblast) to its management. Previously, these plants were leased from Dmitry Firtash’s structures.
In August 2016, the government included UMCC in the list of companies to be privatized in 2017. The privatization was postponed several times, most recently due to Covid and quarantine.
Before the war, in the second half of 2021, the SPF put UMCC up for auction three times with a starting price of UAH 3.7 billion. The last auction, scheduled for December 20, did not take place as only two bids were submitted, one of which was rejected due to non-compliance with the law. At that time, one bidder was not enough for the sale. This was preceded by a statement by the privatization adviser BDO Corporate Finance that international companies were not ready to participate in the auction due to the lack of guarantees of protection of large investments by the Cabinet of Ministers. At that time, the SPF and the advisor appealed to the government to provide such guarantees, but to no avail.
In 2023, UMCC’s revenue decreased by 15.4% to UAH 1 billion 946.68 million, and its net loss amounted to UAH 481.35 million against a net profit of UAH 13.37 million a year earlier. According to YouControl, in January-September this year, the company increased its revenue by 88.8% to UAH 2 billion 295.5 million, receiving UAH 89.1 million in net profit against UAH 274.2 million in net loss for the same period last year.
Where are drivers most often fined?
More than 3.2 million traffic violations were detected by auto-fixation cameras in 9 months of 2024, according to the Patrol Police Department.
This is 1.7 times more than in the same period last year and a record for the last 5 years. 99% of violations were related to speeding. More than 2 million more violations were recorded by police officers.
3,278,982 traffic violations were detected by auto-fixation cameras in Ukraine this year. This is 1.7 times more than in the same period last year. In total, this is a record number of violations for the entire period of operation of the autofixation cameras since June 2020. Almost all the violations recorded by the cameras concerned speeding. Only 1% – 16,833 violations – were related to stopping or driving in the public transport lane.
The highest number of violations per month was recorded this year in September – 520,247.
Currently, there are 308 auto-fixation cameras in Ukraine in 19 regions of Ukraine and the capital. 20% of all cameras are located in Kyiv (30) and the region (32). There are 44 cameras in Lviv region, 13 of which are in Lviv and 31 in the region. At the same time, in the regions close to the frontline (Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions), the monitoring devices are not connected.
For comparison, on the eve of the full-scale invasion, 246 devices in 24 cities and 15 regions recorded violations.
In addition to automatic recording, police officers issued 2,088,433 traffic tickets for traffic violations. Drivers were fined most often in Lviv region: 220,161 tickets, followed by Kyiv (180,719) and Odesa (134,836).
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/autofines-2024
