China’s Bohai Commodity Exchange (BOCE) on September 18 repeatedly submitted an application seeking the approval of the acquisition of a stake in the share capital of PJSC PFTS Stock Exchange (Kyiv), Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine Yuriy Terentiev has told Interfax-Ukraine. “The Chinese side [in May 2018] applied for an agreement to acquire a stake in the PFTS, but since the seller’s control relationships were poorly disclosed, this served as the basis for returning the application. This week, on Tuesday, the party addressed with a new application,” he said on the sidelines of the annual Ukrainian Financial Forum in Odesa organized by ICU investment group.
The head of the committee added that if the documents are properly presented, an appropriate permit can be granted within 45 days.
In addition, Terentiev said that regarding the Ukrainian Exchange, which announced its intention to offer 36% of the additionally issued shares to BOCE, the committee has not yet received the application.
Earlier, BOCE studied the possibility of buying more than 25% of the shares in PJSC PFTS Stock Exchange and in early May 2018 asked the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine for preliminary conclusions on the acquisition of such a stake.
Windkraft Ukraine LLC (Skadovsk, Kherson region) by the end of this year plans to bring the installed capacity of its wind farms in Kherson region to 170 MW and the company is mulling the next project to boost them by another 150-170 MW, Windkraft Ukraine Director Carl Sturen has said. “By the end of the year there will be 170 MW: 100 MW have been added,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the recent YES Conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv, commenting on the development of the company in 2018. Sturen said that this year the company used its own funds and bank loans. According to him, to implement plans for further expansion, Windkraft Ukraine will consider various financing options.
The director said that while the company, using its own resources, began to build a substation that will allow increasing the capacity. He said that the new sites are not far from the already developed ones.
Asked why Windkraft Ukraine remains committed to wind farms, not solar power plants, which are more popular among investors due to a higher tariff and lower investment, Sturen said that he considers the windfarm business more sustainable. “The wind is more sustainable: it is more complicated, but it fits better with the energy system and is better for the consumer,” the director said.
As of late 2017, 80% of software in Ukraine installed in PCs has no licenses, and since 2015 (the year of the previous study) the figure decreased by 2%, the BSA | The Software Alliance has said in its 2018 Global Software Survey. According to the document, the commercial value of unlicensed software declined by $21 million or 19.4% over the period.
In the Central and Easter Europe (24 countries), the amount of unauthorized software as of late 2017 was 57% (a decline by 1%).
According to the association, to cut the risk of malware attacks and increase profits, companies in Ukraine should check software in its IT infrastructure and get rid of unlicensed software.
President and CEO of BSA Victoria Espinel said that companies should introduce Software Asset Management (SAM) to get full control over the software installed. This would allow organizations to reduce a risk of cyber attacks causing serious aftermath for business and could increase profits.
The 2018 Global Software Survey: Software Management: Security Imperative, Business Opportunity estimates the volume and value of unlicensed software installed on personal computers in 2017, across more than 110 national and regional economies. It also reveals key attitudes and behaviors related to software licensing, intellectual property, and emerging technologies based on a global survey of more than 20,000 respondents.
With headquarters in Washington, DC, and operations in more than 60 countries, BSA pioneers compliance programs that promote legal software use and advocates for public policies that foster technology innovation and drive growth in the digital economy.
National Energy Company Ukrenergo is heading to the final stage of corporatization and the end of this process is expected approximately in the middle of November, Ukrenergo CEO Vsevolod Kovalchuk has said.
“The process was delayed because the reorganization commission had no evaluation. Now it is completed, a positive review from the State Property Fund has been received,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the YES Conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv.
Kovalchuk said that the commission should approve the audit of the balance to be transferred, for which the necessary materials were sent to the ministries. According to him, the next week or in two weeks the answers will be received, after which the process will reach the formal final stage: the charter will be approved and registered. The draft charter has long been developed. After that, Ukrenergo will be transferred to the State Property Fund with the subsequent return to the ownership of the Energy and Coal Industry Ministry.
“This process will be completed in full before the middle of November,” the head of the company said.
He added that synchronously to the process the supervisory board is being approved. “The selection (of four independent members of the supervisory board] was completed two and a half or three months ago, but there is no decision on the appointment yet. I hope that this issue will be resolved in a week or two, and this will open the way for further transformation of the company, and the corporate governance reform will be completed,” Kovalchuk said.
He found it difficult to name the size of the charter capital of Ukrenergo following the results of corporatization, since it is necessary to approve the audit of the balance of payments to take into account the remarks, if any, on including or excluding certain assets or ownership rights into or from the charter capital.