Law enforcement officers have served Ihor Kolomoisky with another suspicion of organizing a contract killing, the Prosecutor General’s Office reports.
“Under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office, a well-known businessman suspected of legalizing fraudulently obtained property was served with a notice of suspicion of committing another crime related to the organization of a contract killing (Part 4 of Article 27, Part 2 of Article 15, paragraphs 11, 12, Part 2 of Article 115 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine),” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement on its Telegram channel on Wednesday.
It is reported that according to the investigation, the suspect, “acting on motives of personal revenge, ordered the murder of the director of a law firm for failure to fulfill the requirements for canceling and invalidating the decisions of the general meeting of shareholders of an open joint-stock company. To realize his criminal intentions, the suspect involved members of a gang that “specialized” in committing serious and especially serious crimes, including physical violence against competitors.”
The gang members attacked the director of a law firm, punching and stabbing him in the vital organs. “At the same time, this crime was not brought to an end for reasons that did not depend on the will of the gang members,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
According to MP of the VIII convocation Serhiy Leshchenko, it is “about Kolomoisky’s suspicion of an attempt on the life of lawyer Serhiy Karpenko for refusing to follow instructions in a corporate dispute over the Dniprospetsstal enterprise (Zaporizhzhia).”
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, prosecutors and investigators are currently carrying out urgent investigative and procedural actions aimed at exposing all persons involved in the crime. The suspect is in custody.
The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings is ongoing and is being carried out by investigators of the Main Department of the National Police of Ukraine with the operational support of the Criminal Investigation Department of the National Police of Ukraine.
“DTEK RES received positive feedback from the architectural and town-planning council under the Department of building, town planning and architecture, housing and communal services and energy of Poltava OVA regarding the detailed territory plan (DPT) for construction, operation and maintenance of Poltava Wind Power Plant with an estimated design capacity of 650 MW.
“Also, the DPT was agreed at public hearings of Globinsky city territorial society, and approved at the session of Globinsky city council”, – reported on the website of DTEK.
As informed in the energy holding, according to the results of the developed and approved DPT at the session of Globinsky city council on April 25, 2024, decisions were made to lease to “DTEK Poltava VES” the first land plots of communal property in the amount of 120 pcs. with an approximate area of 205 hectares.
The company, together with Globinsky City Council, has already agreed and signed land lease agreements and carried out state registration of the lease right in the State Register of Rights to Immovable Property (DRRP).
In addition, a package of documents has been submitted to NEC Ukrenergo to obtain technical conditions for connecting 650 MW of generating capacity to the national operator’s network.
“We are confidently moving forward to the realization of the Poltava WPP project. Approval of the DPT is the next stage, which is necessary to extend the wind farm development and to obtain investments in the project. Among other things, ornithological studies and wind monitoring are being conducted now,” DTEK RES Deputy General Director Oleg Solovey is quoted on the website.
As reported, the net loss of DTEK RENEWABLES BV last year amounted to UAH 0.547 billion, which is 29 times less than in 2022 (UAH 15.841 billion).
“DTEK RES plans to continue its activities in accordance with its current plans and long-term strategy until 2030. The group plans to develop projects in the Poltava region (650 MW) and in southern Ukraine (up to 650 MW) over the next five years.
The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPFU) has put up for privatization the Shabalynivka distillery in Chernihiv region.
“This facility is a promising brownfield waiting for an investor to restore it. The privatization of the plant opens up opportunities for the development of an industrial site with existing infrastructure,” said Vitaliy Koval, head of the SPF, on Telegram.
According to the report, the plant is located in the village of Ivanivka, Nizhyn district, near the lake and the M-02 and T-2523 highways.
The single property complex includes 51 real estate objects (12,312 thousand square meters), two land plots with an area of 56.46 hectares, three cars and 250 movable property items (equipment, furniture, etc.).
The new owner is obliged to pay off the company’s existing wage arrears of UAH 552 thousand and UAH 21.17 million to the budget. The terms of the sale include the preservation of jobs for six months.
The starting price of the lot is UAH 959.1 thousand (excluding VAT).
The online auction will take place on May 16 in the Prozorro.Sale system. Bids will be accepted until May 15 inclusive.
“The privatization of Shabalynivka Distillery is a chance for investors to realize their business ideas on the basis of existing production facilities and infrastructure. The new owner will be able to diversify its activities and create added value,” said the SPF chairman.
According to the Fund, distilleries are one of the most popular small-scale privatization assets. Since September 2022, the SPF has sold 14 distilleries and raised UAH 965 million to the state budget, with the average price of each object at auction tripling.
The SPF planned to fully complete the privatization of the alcohol industry in 2023, for which it was planned to hold online auctions for the sale of 26 distilleries across the country. However, a number of them did not take place.
State-owned enterprise Guaranteed Buyer has paid UAH 4.3 billion to renewable electricity producers for the purchased resource in several months of 2023 after the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) approved the amount of compensation from NPC Ukrenergo by Resolution No. 858 of April 30.
“On May 6, the company made payments totaling UAH 4.3 billion and achieved the following payment levels: for January 2023 – 100%, for February – 94.9%, for July – 99.4%, for August – 100%, for September – 96.8%,” GarPok’s website reports.
They explained that the payment was made at the expense of funds received from Ukrenergo, as well as payments from renewable energy producers for services to settle the share of imbalances and the cost of deviations of the balancing group of Guaranteed Buyer.
According to the website, in April, Guaranteed Buyer transferred UAH 2.8 billion to renewable energy producers at the feed-in tariff, both for April last year and for April this year.
As reported, in early April, in a commentary to Energoreforma, Ukrenergo CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi predicted that industrial RES plants would start repaying their debts in the near future.
“As for the payment for electricity produced through Guaranteed Buyer, the debts a month ago were UAH 32 billion, now they are at the level of UAH 22-23 billion and will decrease significantly after we sign the acts with Guaranteed Buyer for 2022-2023. I hope that we are very close to signing the agreements, as there is still a technical problem. Then, I think, we will be able to pay several billion hryvnias,” Kudrytsky said.
Ukraine’s largest one dollar store chain, Aurora, will become the first tenant of M10 Lviv Industrial Park (347 Shevchenko St.), the press service of Lviv City Council reports.
As reported, in February 2024, the developer of the industrial park, Dragon Capital, commissioned the first phase of M10 Lviv Industrial Park, a Class A warehouse complex with an area of 14.4 thousand square meters.
The further development of the M10 Industrial Park project envisages the construction of warehouse complexes in the build-to-suit format (design and construction of a facility for a customer).
“We are currently negotiating with several potential participants. These are representatives of Ukrainian business, manufacturing companies looking to expand or relocate their business. As for the format of cooperation (sale or lease), it depends on the needs and situation of a particular company,” Mykhailo Sakun, Dragon Capital’s investment director, told Interfax-Ukraine.
M10 Lviv Industrial Park is a new industrial park located in the Ryasne-2 industrial zone of Lviv, on the M10 highway, 60 km from the Krakovets checkpoint on the border with Poland. The territory of the park covers an area of 23.5 hectares and consists of six plots planned for warehousing and production facilities with a total area of 140 thousand square meters. Dragon Capital Property Management, the company’s own management company, provides centralized maintenance of infrastructure facilities and security for the park. The facilities are certified according to BREEAM international green building standards.
In 2023, the European Bank for Development and Reconstruction (EBRD) has already invested $5.5 million in the project, and its total investment in M10 Lviv Industrial Park will be up to $24.5 million. The World Bank’s International Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) has also insured the project against military risks for 10 years for an investment of $9.2 million.
The head office of the Aurora retail chain is located in Poltava. “Aurora was founded in 2011 by Lev Zhydenko, Taras Panasenko, and Lesia Klymenko.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of Vygidna Kupilka LLC, which develops the chain, is listed as Cyprus-based Auroritel Investments Limited, with Zhydenko as its beneficiary. The Cypriot company also owns Prior Development LLC, Seven A LLC, Promyslova 9 LLC, and Tak LLC.
Dragon Capital is one of the largest groups of companies in Ukraine operating in the field of investment and financial services and providing a full range of investment banking and brokerage services, private equity, asset management to institutional, corporate and private clients. The company has more than 20 years of successful experience in direct investments in leading manufacturers of goods and service providers in Ukraine, as well as in landmark residential and commercial real estate projects.
Dragon Capital Property Management is the management team that manages the company’s commercial real estate portfolio. It manages 28 properties (business centers, shopping malls and logistics centers) with a total area of 647 thousand square meters.
In 2023, AgroGeneration Group produced about 72.45 thsd tonnes of grains and oilseeds, which is 8.6% less than a year earlier, with an increase in acreage by 2.5% to 29.62 thsd ha, the company’s website reports.
It is noted that the EBITDA of the agricultural holding in 2023 returned to positive values, amounting to EUR 0.3 mln, compared to negative EUR 5.8 mln in 2022. The company was still well below the pre-war level, although net losses decreased from EUR31.6 million in 2022 to EUR7.9 million in 2023, the report said.
AgroGeneration explained the decline in production by almost 9% by the forced changes in the range of crops in 2023 due to the reduction of winter wheat plantings in the fall of 2022. This, in turn, was caused by weather conditions and resulted in more than 70% of the sown areas becoming less productive after several years of sunflower cultivation.
According to the report, crop yields in 2023 increased by 30% compared to the previous year and amounted to about 4 tons/ha versus 3 tons/ha, respectively. Despite the increase in the harvest, the quality of wheat decreased and almost 100% of it was represented by feed grain, while a year earlier this figure was 80%. The agroholding explains that wheat quality deteriorated across Ukraine due to heavy rains before the harvesting campaign in June-July 2023 and due to the late sowing campaign in the fall of 2022 amid poor weather conditions.
The group’s farms harvested about 43 thsd tonnes of sunflower at an average net yield of 1.9 c/ha, compared to 2 c/ha in 2022. The total net production of corn and soybeans amounted to about 6 thousand tons.
AgroGeneration’s revenue in 2023 amounted to EUR16.4 million, down 36.7% year-on-year, due to the sale of 75.7 thousand tons (-7.4 thousand tons by 2022) of crops from the 2022 and 2023 harvests, which were sold at significantly reduced prices. At the same time, EUR 9.3 mln was received from the sale of 2022 stocks, EUR 7.4 mln for the 2023 harvest, and EUR 0.2 mln was received for other products and services.
The share of exports in AgroGeneration’s revenue in 2023 amounted to 18% in tonnage, compared to 28% in 2022.
AgroGeneration was founded in 2007. The company specializes in growing grains and oilseeds, and its land bank before the Russian military invasion amounted to 58 thousand hectares in Kharkiv region, and by the end of 2022 it had shrunk to 30 thousand hectares due to the Russian invasion. Following the operational restructuring carried out in the third quarter of last year due to the war, the holding includes seven companies. The restructuring was aimed at disposing of “toxic” assets, including 25,000 hectares of land destroyed or severely damaged by the war and located near the Russian border, which would have cost more than $50 million to maintain.
Due to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, AgroGeneration reduced its land bank to 30 thousand hectares from 56 thousand hectares in 2022. The agricultural holding’s revenue fell by 41.1% compared to the pre-war year 2021 to EUR 25.854 million, and net loss amounted to EUR 31.595 million against net profit of EUR 14.202 million, respectively. The gross loss amounted to EUR5.608 million against a gross profit of EUR32.361 million in 2021, and the losses from the war were estimated at EUR15.448 million.
At the end of last year, the company’s total debt was estimated at EUR18.065 million, down from EUR24.599 million a year earlier, and its assets were EUR36.391 million, compared to EUR82.033 million a year earlier.
Currently, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine is considering the purchase of shares of AgroGeneration S. A. by NovaAgro Ukraine LLC, which will make it the owner of AgroGeneration S. A., which would make it the owner of a controlling stake.