Ukraine’s second-largest mobile operator, Vodafone Ukraine (VFU), which on May 23 announced an offer to repurchase its Eurobonds worth $1.11 million, has received bids significantly exceeding the repurchase amount.
“The offered bonds will be accepted for purchase on a pro rata basis in accordance with a scaling factor of 0.0040355668,” the issuer said in a statement on the Irish Stock Exchange on Monday.
According to the statement, if the application of this ratio to the bond package of any holder results in an amount less than the minimum nominal value, such offered bonds will be rejected.
The settlement date for the tender offer will be approximately June 13, 2025.
The redemption of Eurobonds is related to the fact that on April 24, 2025, VFU announced the payment of dividends to its shareholder in the amount of UAH 660.245 million ($15.9 million at the exchange rate specified in the announcement) for 2024. According to the restrictions of the National Bank, they will be paid in separate monthly dividend payments. Each such monthly dividend is expected to amount to EUR1 million in hryvnia.
The company emphasized that, according to the terms of the bond issue, in this case, it must offer all bondholders to submit an application for their sale for an amount equal to the amount of dividends paid outside Ukraine.
According to the announced terms, the bonds will be redeemed at a rate of 99% of their face value.
VFU recalled that a total of $300 million in bonds maturing in February 2027 with a nominal rate of 9.625% per annum were issued, of which the company currently holds $0.5 million in bonds.
As reported, VFU increased its revenue by 13.1% to UAH 24.44 billion in 2024, while reducing its net profit by 30.1% to UAH 3.54 billion.
In January-March 2025, revenue grew by 14% compared to the same period in 2024, to UAH 6.59 billion, while net profit fell by 24% to UAH 697 million.
The State Service for Food Safety is making efforts to open the Chinese market to Ukrainian flour in 2025, according to Vadym Chaykovsky, Deputy Head of the State Service for Food Safety and Chief Phytosanitary Inspector of Ukraine.
“We plan to sign protocols with our Chinese colleagues this year to open the market for Ukrainian wheat flour,” he said at the Agro Ukraine Summit in Kyiv on Friday.
He recalled that the State Service initiated procedures to promote the supply of wheat, millet, and sorghum from Ukraine to the Chinese market and is systematically working to open this market for Ukrainian peas.
Chaikovsky added that the phytosanitary authorities of both countries are currently preparing to launch a service such as video inspection of crops from the fields of enterprises that intend to supply products to China in the 2025/2026 season.
The chief phytosanitary inspector called on export-oriented enterprises to promptly contact the regional offices of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection to conduct phytosanitary inspections of their fields.
In January-March 2025, Insurance Guarantees of Ukraine (SGU, Kyiv) collected UAH 166,000 in gross premiums, which is 71.08% less than in the same period of 2024.
This follows from information from the rating agency Expert-Rating confirming the insurer’s financial stability rating for the first quarter of 2025 at “uaAA” on the national scale.
It is noted that during this period of 2025, the company did not make any insurance payments.
SGU’s equity for the reporting period decreased by 7.44% to UAH 51.29 million, while gross liabilities increased by 48.88% to UAH 1.39 million.
The amount of cash and cash equivalents in SGU’s accounts as of March 31, 2025, amounted to UAH 43.998 million, a decrease of 7.83%, and the company’s assets exceeded the insurer’s gross liabilities by 31.61 times.
The company’s activities in the first quarter of 2025 were unprofitable: the insurer received a net loss of 801 thousand and an operating loss of 1.244 million UAH.
PJSC “SGU” was registered in November 2005. It has licenses to conduct 15 types of insurance activities, including four for compulsory insurance and 11 for voluntary insurance.
Companies in the OpenDataBot 2025 Index in the sports and entertainment category earned UAH 3.47 billion in revenue. Only three companies were able to turn a profit. FC Dynamo Kyiv led the way in terms of revenue with UAH 913.65 million, but despite this, the team suffered losses of UAH 784.07 million.
The total revenue of the OpenDataBot Index 2025 in the sports and entertainment category increased by 10% to UAH 3.47 billion. Despite this growth, only three companies made a profit of UAH 6.49 million, while all others incurred losses of UAH 1.11 billion.
The top ten included five football clubs, two sports club chains, and two recreation and entertainment centers.
The income of FC Dynamo Kyiv fell 1.7 times, but this did not prevent it from topping the rating. The club, which is part of the Surkis brothers’ group, earned UAH 913.65 million in revenue last year. Despite this, it suffered losses of UAH 784.07 million. By comparison, in 2023, Dynamo was still in the black with UAH 345.67 million.
Second and third place went to companies associated with the Sport Life network. Sport Life Kyiv-1 (owned by Tetyana Podrezova) and Sport Life Kyiv-6 (owned by Larisa Pakhomova) increased their revenues by 1.5 times to UAH 545.8 million and UAH 377.56 million, respectively. However, their profits did not grow evenly, increasing 15 times to UAH 1.03 million in Kyiv-1 and 2 times to UAH 2.2 million in Kyiv-6.
FC Kryvbas took fourth place with revenues of UAH 287.12 million, which is 1.6 times more than in 2023. Over the year, the company managed to reduce its losses by 3.4 times to UAH 1.1 million.
Thermal Fyurdo (Kosyno thermal waters) closed the top five. Its revenue decreased by 16% compared to UAH 272.76 million. However, losses decreased 8 times compared to 2023, to UAH 6.47 million.
The football club Polissya from Zhytomyr, owned by Gennady Butkevich, co-owner of ATB, entered the Index for the first time, taking sixth place. The company’s revenue increased fourfold to UAH 266.8 million. Losses also increased almost twofold to UAH 256 million.
In 7th place is the Apollo Next sports club chain, owned by Fozzy Group CEO Vladimir Kostelman. The company’s revenue doubled to UAH 234 million, while losses amounted to UAH 6.9 million. However, 2023 was a profitable year, with a profit of UAH 12 million.
We would like to thank OpenDataBot for recognizing and including us in the top 10 companies in Ukraine in the field of sports and entertainment. Despite the challenges of wartime, the APOLLO NEXT network continues to develop, opening new clubs and creating jobs, because we believe in the importance of supporting the physical and mental health of Ukrainians. Our resilience is based on flexibility, a combination of online and offline formats, customer care, including special programs for veterans, and, of course, conscientious tax payments, which is our contribution to the stability of Ukraine’s economy, commented a representative of the sports club.
Next in the ranking is Vitaliy Khomutynnik’s entertainment center Neopolis, located in the Respublika Park shopping and entertainment center (Kyiv). Its revenue increased by 24% to UAH 197.51 million. The company’s losses decreased by 14% to UAH 46.96 million.
Next is LNZ Football Club (Cherkasy), owned by the LNZ Group, with 6.4 times more revenue than in 2023 – UAH 188.64 million. Profit amounted to UAH 3.27 million – this is the only football club in the ranking that made a profit.
Rinat Akhmetov’s Shakhtar-Service closed the top 10 with revenues of UAH 182 million and losses 3.3 times lower than in 2023 – UAH 7.4 million.
This year, the following clubs left the Index:
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/index-sports-entertainment-2025
The Vitagro group of companies, which already has one biomethane plant with an annual capacity of 3 million cubic meters in the Khmelnytskyi region, intends to build two or three more such plants in a year and a half, each costing EUR6-6.5 million, according to the company’s director of development and investment, Serhii Savchuk.
“We plan to build two or three more plants with a capacity of 3 million cubic meters each. We estimate the cost of one plant at EUR 6-6.5 million. We will need about 1.5 years to do this,” Savchuk said in a comment to EnergoReform on the sidelines of the Solar Agro Conference organized by the Solar Energy Association of Ukraine.
He did not specify the details of biomethane exports from the first plant, noting that after a test delivery in February, “everything the plant produces is sold to a number of countries, including Germany and the UK, at market prices.”
During his speech at the conference, he suggested that the company may work with Ukrainian banks to expand its biomethane capacity.
“Today, our plant with a capacity of 3 million cubic meters of biomethane, which is produced from manure from our livestock complexes, is fully operational. We will build a pipeline, Ukrgasbank is here, you can pay attention to us,” he said to conference participant Mykola Alferov, deputy director of the SME Department at UGB.
Savchuk also noted that during the war, the group launched a bioethanol plant in the Ternopil region by reconstructing an alcohol plant it privatized at the end of 2022, which cost EUR20 million.
“We invested EUR 20 million, completely re-equipped the distillery, and now have 25,000 tons of bioethanol for export from the processing of 85,000 tons of corn,” explained the director of development and investment at Vitagro.
In a comment to Energorforma, Savchuk expressed hope that cooperation will eventually be established for the sale of bioethanol to fuel companies in Ukraine, which from May 1 must sell gasoline containing at least 5% of this substance, but do not mix the product here, instead importing it ready-made from Europe.
He also shared his experience of installing SES groups on farms for their own consumption, which he called “an absolutely effective investment.”
“Seven solar stations for our own consumption were installed in a few months, and we have developed an appetite for a second phase, so we want to launch separate complexes both on the roof and on the side. This is economics, this is ecology, this is the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) trend, which is very relevant. We are a good example for the development of SES for our own consumption, and in the future there will be energy storage,” Savchuk said about Vitagro’s plans.
As reported in February 2025, Vitagro announced its intention to reach the planned annual capacity of the biomethane plant of 3 million cubic meters in 2025 and, if exports are successful, to build two more plants (in the Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions) to increase production and exports.
At that time, it was indicated that the group of companies was considering the option of attracting foreign investors to its capital.
The company expected that the EUR6 million invested in the construction of the first biomethane plant in the Khmelnytskyi region would pay off in five years, but if the market continued to grow, it would pay off sooner. The company’s cost price for biomethane was stated at over EUR 500 per 1,000 cubic meters.
In February, the chairman of the board of the Bioenergy Association of Ukraine, Georgy Geletukha, noted that the average price of biomethane for export to Europe could be approximately EUR 900 per thousand cubic meters.
Agroholding Vitagro exported its first batch of biomethane in 67,000 cubic meters (destination country – Germany) on February 6, 2025.
The Vitagro group of companies is engaged in the production and processing of agricultural crops, in particular fruits and vegetables, dairy farming, and pig breeding. The group cultivates about 85,000 hectares of land in the Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, and Rivne regions. In 2022, it acquired the Marylivsky Distillery (Nagirnyanka village, Ternopil region) from Ukrspirt.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiary of the investment company Vitagro is People’s Deputy Serhiy Labazuk (parliamentary faction “For the Future”).
Flour and cereal producers are concerned about a reduction in flour exports to the European Union after the expiry of autonomous trade measures on June 6, as 75% of their exports currently go to the EU, Rodion Rybchinsky, director of the Ukrainian Flour Millers Association, said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Starting from June 6, we have the opportunity to supply a total of 583,300 tons of wheat and wheat flour to the EU market by the end of the year. But since the quota is combined, I am not sure that we will be able to fill it. It is much easier for wheat exporters to find buyers in the EU and fill their quota,” he said.
Rybchynsky added that the industry association continues to use all possible communication channels to convey to European officials the need to allocate a separate quota for Ukrainian flour for export to the EU or to remove it altogether.
The head of the Ukrainian Flour Millers Association stated that before the war, there were 678 enterprises specializing in grain processing in Ukraine, but in 2022, 192 enterprises were destroyed and remained in the occupied territories. As of the end of 2024, 88 enterprises have been restored.
At the same time, according to his information, exports of flour and cereals have fallen by 50% since the start of the war. Among the reasons, the expert cited a reduction in production and changes in logistics: whereas exports used to be mainly by sea, since the start of the war they have been forced to switch to road and rail transport, which are more expensive than sea transport.
Due to problems with transporting products across the Black Sea, container shipping has not yet been fully restored. As a result, the geography of grain processing product sales has changed significantly since the beginning of the war: 75% of products are exported to the European market, of which 55% go to EU countries, 15% to the Middle East, 4% to Africa, and 2% to Asia, according to the head of the Ukrainian Flour Millers Association.
As reported, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Taras Vysotsky said in comments to journalists that one of the government’s strategies in negotiations with the European Commission will be to request that the established quotas be divided by commodity codes.
The European Commission has approved quotas for Ukrainian agricultural products, which will be in effect from June 6 until the end of 2025 as part of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) agreement. According to a document published on the EU website, by the end of 2025, Ukraine will be able to supply the EU market under the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area in a 7/12 month mode (7/12) with wheat, flour, and meslin – 583,330 tons , corn – 379,167 thousand tons, barley – 204,167 thousand tons, poultry meat – 52,511 thousand tons, beef – 7 thousand tons, eggs – 3,500 tons, milk and cream – 5,833 tons, dry milk – 2,917 tons, butter – 1,750 tons.
