Polish fashion brand Sinsay, owned by the large retail group LPP, plans to open five new stores in Ukraine by the end of the summer.
According to the retailer’s website, the store in Tyachiv (Zakarpattia region) is scheduled to open on August 19, in Yuzhnoukrainsk (Mykolaiv region) – on August 22, in Kryvyi Rih, Zhytomyr and Poltava – on August 23.
As reported, the Polish group LPP, which owns the brands Reserved, Sinsay and others, plans to double the number of its stores in the next three years, betting on the budget brand Sinsay and the overall growth of the company’s sales. There are plans to reach 4755 stores by the end of 2026, of which 3248 are Sinsay stores.
The group has more than 140 stores in Ukraine.
At the end of 2023, the group’s sales increased by 9.3% to PLN 17.41 billion, while net profit increased by 85.5% to PLN 1.61 billion.
Philip Morris International (PMI) in January-June 2024 increased tax deductions to budgets of different levels by 33.5%, or UAH 6 billion, compared to the same period of 2023 – up to UAH 23.9 billion, the company said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Important factors for the increase in tax deductions were the recovery of the company’s share in the Ukrainian market, as well as the launch of a new factory, in which the company invested $30 million,” PMI Ukraine CFO Sergiy Kalnoochenko is quoted in the release.
It is specified that excise tax accounted for UAH 12 bln, VAT – UAH 3.2 bln.
Last year PMI reported on payment of 30.3 billion UAH of taxes in Ukraine.
Kralnoochenko added that the growth of tax payments was also facilitated by the increase in the legal tobacco market, which became possible due to the active struggle of state authorities with illegal producers.
According to him, Philip Morris will continue to invest in the development of its own business, as a result of which in August 2024 it plans to pay to the budget more than 3.5 billion hryvnias of excise tax alone as part of direct production at the newly opened factory in Lviv region and its own imports, as well as under a local contract for contract manufacturing.
Philip Morris was spun off from Altria in 2008 and is among the world’s largest tobacco manufacturers, declaring the goal of full transition to smokeless products in the future.
PMI has been operating in the Ukrainian market since 1994, and during this time its declared investments have exceeded $750 million. The company has suspended operations at its factory in Kharkiv region since February 24, 2022 due to Russian aggression and was forced to switch to importing products from eight PMI factories outside the country and a temporary partnership with another international manufacturer in Ukraine. In May this year, the company officially launched a new factory in Lviv region with an announced investment of $30 million.
PMI cut shipments in the Ukrainian market by 30.1% to 11.07 billion cigarettes and tobacco sticks in 2022 due to the war, but it managed to increase finished goods shipments by 8.4% in 2023, including a 14.9% increase in the fourth quarter. Last October, the company said its share of the Ukrainian market had recovered to 24% after dropping to 14% from 28.5% in the first months after the Russian Federation invasion.
Ukrainian banks in January-June this year increased net profit by UAH 11.4 billion, or 16.8% compared to the figure for the same period of 2023 – up to UAH 79.04 billion, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) said.
“The main drivers of profitability are maintaining a high net interest margin and almost zero allocations to provisions for losses from active operations,” the NBU explained the reasons for the profitability growth.
“In the first half of the year, only seven small banks out of 62 solvent banks were unprofitable with an aggregate loss of UAH 171 million,” informed the National Bank.
According to his data, the profitability of the main assets of banks during the second quarter further declined. In particular, it was falling fastest for NBU certificates of deposit, in connection with which banks reduced the volume of investments in these securities, the regulator said.
At the same time, rates on domestic government loan bonds (OVGZ) also went down, but the volume of investments in them grew.
“It was due to the increase in assets that banks maintained a sufficiently high net interest margin and increased income,” the regulator emphasized.
It is noted that the return on equity of banks for the first half of 2024 amounted to 48.4%, which is lower than the same indicator of the first half of 2023, which amounted to 56%.
The volume of income tax accrued by banks for the first six months of this year amounted to UAH 21.9 billion compared to UAH 12.4 billion for the comparable period last year, as the income tax rate was increased from 18% to 25%.
According to the NBU, last year the net profit of the banking system amounted to UAH 82.8 bln after accruing UAH 76.2 bln of profit tax at the increased rate of 50%.
CRH Ukraine B.V. (Netherlands) has announced its intention to acquire a 99.9775% stake in the authorized capital of Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine PJSC, which owns two cement plants in Rivne and Mykolayiv regions.
The corresponding message the company posted in the information disclosure system of the National Commission for Securities and Stock Market (NCSSM) on August 12.
It is indicated that CRH Ukraine B.V. intends to purchase 158 million 311 thousand 865 common registered shares, which is 99.9775% of the authorized capital of PJSC. At the same time CRH and its affiliates do not own shares of “Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine” as of the date of the message.
As reported, in July 2024, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) authorized CRH group to acquire the assets of Dickerhoff Cement Ukraine. At the same time, the condition of concentration is the transfer of 25-28% of shares of PJSC with the right of veto to an independent investor within nine months from the date of the purchase.
It is expected that such investor will be the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), since in December 2023 CRH signed a mandate letter with it regarding the joint acquisition of assets of the Italian company Buzzi in Ukraine.
In addition, CRH will be obliged to report regularly for five years to the AMCU, in particular on the volume of production and selling prices on the domestic market.
As reported, in June 2023, the Italian cement manufacturer Buzzi, listed by the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption as an international sponsor of war, through its subsidiary Dyckerhoff GmbH reached an agreement to sell part of its business in Eastern Europe to the Irish group CRH, including Ukrainian assets in the form of two cement plants – Volyn Cement (Zdolbunov, Rivne region) and Yugcement (Olshanske, Mykolayiv region).
AMCU considered CRH’s application for concentration from September 2023.
CRH has been operating in Ukraine since 1999. Since November 2021, its cement enterprises in Ukraine have been operating under the Cemark brand: Podolsk Cement JSC (Khmelnytskyi oblast), Cement LLC (Odessa) and Mykolaivcement PJSC (Lviv oblast).
A separate line of CRH business in Ukraine is production of concrete and reinforced concrete products. PoliBeton Energo’s Bila Tserkva Reinforced Concrete Plant is a specialized enterprise that produces supports for power transmission lines. PoliBeton’s concrete unit in the north of Odessa joined CRH in 2020.
Since 1999, the company has invested about $500 million in Ukraine. In particular, since the start of the full-scale invasion, CRH has invested $80 million, including $34 million in the construction of a cement terminal in the Kiev region.
CRH is the leading producer of construction materials in the world. The company employs about 71 thousand people at 3200 enterprises in 28 countries. It is the largest producer of construction materials in North America and Europe. The company is also present in Asia. American depositary shares of CRH are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Amid the hostilities in the region, Kharkivoblenergo JSC is implementing the key tasks of its investment program in the form of new construction, technical re-equipment and reconstruction of power grids and equipment.
“Since the beginning of the year, about 25 km of modern overhead lines have been built, 1134 poles have been replaced, and 5 new power substations have been installed,” the company’s press service said on Wednesday.
In particular, overhead power lines are being replaced in several settlements of Kharkiv and Chuhuiv districts of the region, new modern power poles and transformer substations are being installed. The replacement of overhead lines involves laying insulated self-supporting wires instead of non-insulated ones, which reduces the number of emergency outages, reduces operating costs for repairs, maintenance and disaster relief, and eliminates the cost of tree trimming.
“The key goal of all these measures is to improve the quality of services to consumers and increase the level of reliability of electricity supply SAIDI (the index of the average duration of long interruptions in electricity supply) and SAIFI (the index of the average frequency of long interruptions in electricity supply),” Kharkivoblenergo said.
According to the distribution system operator (DSO), in Sheludkivka, Chuhuiv district, the reconstruction of 5.4 km of 0.4 kV and 10 kV OHLs was completed with the replacement of 238 poles and a new 160 kVA unloading substation was installed. In Sokolove village, 5.37 km of 0.4 kV and 10 kV overhead lines were reconstructed and 287 poles replaced.
In Kharkiv district, which has been under constant shelling by Russian subversive forces for the past month, 14 km of 04 kV and 10 kV OHLs were completed in Peresichne village, 609 poles were replaced, and two new 250 kVA substations were installed. According to experts, the economic effect of the modernization will amount to UAH 4.3 million per year.
“The current state of the grids and their capacity affect the quality and reliability of electricity supply to consumers. Therefore, effective measures include the replacement of overhead lines with modern ones, which involves, in particular, increasing the capacity of wires and arranging new complete and unloading substations,” Vyacheslav Kravtsov, acting CEO of Kharkivoblenergo, explained, as quoted by the press service.
According to him, the investment program primarily includes those projects for the reconstruction of overhead lines and substations with a service life of more than 40 years, and some facilities have reached 70 years.
According to customs statistics released by the State Customs Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian enterprises in January-July 2024 increased exports of aluminum and aluminum products by 16.8% compared to the comparable period a year earlier – to $64.382 million (in July – $10.207 million).
Exports of aluminum and aluminum products in 2023 increased 0.7% year-on-year to $97.616 million (July – $10.207 million),
Aluminum is widely used as a structural material. The main advantages of aluminum in this capacity are its lightness, pliability for stamping, corrosion resistance, high thermal conductivity, and the non-poisonous nature of its compounds. In particular, these properties have made aluminum extremely popular in the production of kitchen utensils, aluminum foil in the food industry, and for packaging. The first three properties have also made aluminum a major raw material in the aviation and aerospace industries (recently displaced by composites, primarily carbon fiber). After construction and production of packaging – aluminum cans and foil – the largest industry-consumer of the metal is the energy sector.
