JSC First Kyiv Machine-Building Plant (the former Bilshovyk plant) will be put up for a privatization auction with a starting price of UAH 1.39 billion, which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday, Dmytro Sennychenko, head of the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine, said. “Today, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has accepted the terms of its privatization. As they say, now a small [not so] challenge remains to find, together with a representative of Big-4, KPMG Ukraine, investors for this asset,” he said on Facebook on Wednesday evening.
According to Sennychenko, the commission will determine the date of the auction in the near future.
“The experience of previous competitions held by the SPF allows us to confidently predict that we will see a significantly larger number on the final scoreboard,” the SPF head said.
He recalled that the plant was established in 1881, when a Swiss entrepreneur bought about 4.4 hectares of land on Shuliavka in Kyiv, and six months later a new enterprise appeared here – Kyiv iron cast and mechanical plant.
“Over the next more than a hundred years, the plant changed the scale of production, profile, name, and experienced stunning transformations – from an unconditional flagship of the industry to an abandoned technically obsolete site,” Sennychenko wrote, adding that perhaps the enterprise will again interest some Swiss investor.
As reported, in accordance with the privatization conditions approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, the new owner of the enterprise must fulfill a number of social and economic conditions, in particular, the payment of wage arrears and single social security tax, the implementation of the current collective agreement and the prevention of dismissal within a certain period.
International IT company Ciklum Group Limited (one of the largest software developers in Ukraine) announced the acquisition of Czech software developer CN Group from Genesis Capital, one of the Central European private equity funds.
The deal will strengthen Ciklum’s market position in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Ciklum said on Wednesday.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
As part of the agreement, Genesis Capital, which invested in CN Group in 2019, sold 100% of its shares in CN Group.
CN Group is headquartered in Prague, with five nearshore delivery locations in Central Europe. The company’s 360 digital technology specialists will become a powerful addition to the Ciklum team of more than 3,500 engineers, designers, product managers and data scientists.
“The combination of CN Group and Ciklum will build on each company’s long history of delivering high-impact products and platforms to clients across Europe and North America while opening new fields of opportunity for both. With delivery across the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Spain, supported by a best-in-class employee culture and learning environment for engineering talent, the united companies will represent one of the largest digital transformation providers in the CEE region with global reach,” the report said.
CN Group has been delivering software engineering, IT consulting and mechanical design engineering for over 27 years. The company serves 62 international customers, including Procter & Gamble, Strabag, TF Bank, Bunte.de and FlatexDEGIRO, across more than seven markets.
Ciklum is a global IT company established in 2002 that provides software development and testing services, is engaged in innovative research and development (R&D), work with data sets (Big Data) and engineering consulting. It has offices in several countries, including Ukraine. In Ukraine, Ciklum is one of the largest IT companies, employing over 2,600 people.
Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises in January-August this year increased production of general rolled products, according to recent data, by 5.9% compared to the same period last year, to 12.999 million tonnes.
According to the Ukrmetalurgprom association on Thursday, over the eight months steel production increased by 6.7%, to 14.596 million tonnes, and cast iron – by 7%, to 14.503 million tonnes.
In August, 1.673 million tonnes of rolled products, 1.864 million tonnes of steel, and 1.852 million tonnes of cast iron were produced, while in the previous month – 1.723 million tonnes of rolled products, 1.876 million tonnes of steel, and 1.857 million tonnes of cast iron.
Energy Minister of Ukraine Herman Halushchenko and U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm have signed a joint statement on strategic dialogue in the field of energy and climate, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“A strategic dialogue in the field of energy and climate has been initiated between Ukraine and the United States. The corresponding joint statement was signed by Ukraine’s Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko and U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
Westinghouse will supply nine batches of fuel for Ukrainian NPPs in 2021, President of Westinghouse’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Operating Plant Services Business Unit Tarik Choho has said.
“In total, in 2021, we will deliver fuel for nine refuelings, and in 2022 it will be seven,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, for all the years of cooperation with National Nuclear Generating Company Energoatom Westinghouse has supplied 1,626 fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants to Ukraine.
Chokho recalled that Westinghouse fuel for VVER-1000 reactors is already in operation at six out of 15 nuclear reactors in Ukraine. “These are units Nos. 1,3,4,5 of Zaporizhia NPP, as well as units Nos. 2 and 3 of Yuzhnoukrinsk NPP. Moreover, five units out of six [units Nos. 1,3,5 of Zaporizhia NPP and No. 3 of Yuzhnoukrinsk NPP] are fully loaded with Westinghouse fuel,” he said.
In addition, starting in 2022, Westinghouse fuel for VVER-1000 reactors will also be used at unit No. 3 of Rivne NPP, and two years later Westinghouse will supply fuel for VVER-440 to unit No. 2 of this plant.
The Afghan authorities till the last did not believe in the withdrawal of the U.S. army from the country and considered all movements of American troops over the past six months to be military maneuvers, Mohammad Farajallah, an expert on the Near and Middle East, the editor-in-chief of the Ukraine in Arabic online portal, told the Experts Club YouTube channel.
“For some unknown reason, the Afghan leadership decided to reshuffle personnel in the army and appointed a person who had been undergoing long-term treatment in the UAE as the Minister of Defense,” the expert added.
Farajallah believes that due to these factors, the Afghan armed forces were in a deplorable state by the beginning of the large-scale offensive by the Taliban. In addition, according to the expert, the Afghan army is used to fighting according to the American model, and was not ready for the lack of massive air support and satellite intelligence.
“At the end of April, the U.S. military ceased serving Afghan aircraft and transmitting intelligence. They announced that they were beginning to withdraw their troops. The Afghan authorities, in turn, did not prepare (for the Taliban’s offensive) and did not understand the importance of the situation. Also, this situation damages the reputation of the CIA, which in its forecasts gave the Taliban at least six months to seize power,” the orientalist emphasized.
Another wrong decision of the Afghan authorities, according to the expert, was the concentration of military units in large cities. This led to the formation of a kind of besieged garrisons without supply lines, which rather quickly surrendered to the Taliban one after another.
The expert said the main factor behind the quick victory for the Taliban was the low morale of the Afghan army. The few pockets of resistance were brutally suppressed by the Taliban, but most of the army simply laid down their arms.
“The Taliban have worked with the heads of clans who have a huge impact on the local population, including soldiers of the Afghan army. When a tribal elder tells a local soldier to drop his weapon and go home, he has no choice but to obey, as tribal leaders have much more authority than inexperienced army commanders,” he noted.
Watch the first part of the program on the situation in Afghanistan here
You can subscribe to the Experts Club channel here.
