At a press conference, Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Šapić announced a new package of social measures of the city administration, which includes public transportation.
Šapić initially boasted about cheaper public transportation and the large investments in public transportation that were made during his administration.
He added that no one before him wanted to deal with this problem.
After that, Šapić announced that from January 1, 2025, all public transportation in Belgrade will be completely free.
“No one will have to pay for travel anymore, there will be no monthly or annual passes, no discounts.” “Thanks to this social measure, Belgrade will become the only city in Europe with a population of more than half a million people where public transport will be free,” he emphasized.
He added that this measure complements the package of social measures that we have already adopted, including free kindergartens for all children in Belgrade.
“Since we introduced the measure of subsidizing private kindergartens in the amount of 33,000 dinars, 3,000 more children have enrolled in kindergartens,” Šapić said.
He reminded that it takes about 60-80 million dollars a year.
As a third measure, he also recalled the need to provide students with family assistance.
“Last year we introduced brand new textbooks to all classes,” he said.
He also recalled measures to provide free access to all city swimming pools, as well as New Year’s gift certificates to all preschool and school children and employees of educational institutions.
He also added free English for preschoolers, noting that it is late, but it is expected to be available by the New Year, and that there will be double trimesters in the second semester.
“No city of Belgrade’s size has such a set of activities,” he said. “That’s why we are the most socially responsible city administration that has run the city in the last 50 years,” emphasized Šapić.
As he added, everyone says that it is not free, because it is financed from the budget.
“It’s not free, but you don’t have to pay twice anymore. Because, according to this logic, citizens paid taxes once and then paid it all a second time. “It depends on who runs the city administration,” the mayor said.
In addition to free transportation, Shapych also announced a public transportation reform.
He emphasized that the biggest public transportation reform since at least the Second World War is underway.
“In the next three years, we will completely renew the entire fleet, which includes all buses, all trams, and all trolleybuses.” By the end of 2025, there will be no buses older than two years on the streets. “The blue buses are coming, 40 have already arrived, 50 more are coming, and they will continue to arrive throughout the next year,” Shapych said.
He added that this applies to both private and public transportation.
“For the first time, private individuals had to buy new vehicles for the streets of Belgrade. They have never had such an obligation before, but they have been using public transportation for more than 30 years,” he emphasized.
According to him, new trams should arrive by 2026, and all 100 new trolleybuses and other trams should be purchased by the end of 2027.
Infrastructure projects
He also said that the reconstruction and expansion of Belgrade’s streets and boulevards would continue.
“Over the past 10 years, 250,000 new vehicles have entered the country, as well as vehicles belonging to tourists and foreigners, the number of which we do not know.” “So far, we have not reached the subway as the main mode of transportation to reduce and slow down the process of traffic congestion,” Shapich said.
He reminded that over the past two years, more than 500 streets have been reconstructed, repaired and renovated.
“The intensity of work in the coming period will be the highest in the last 30 years.” “Thanks to Expo, which is the engine, by the end of this mandate, Belgrade will undergo qualitative changes in all respects, the most extensive in the last 20 years,” Šapić emphasized.
He particularly noted the work on a new bridge and tunnel that will run past the Faculty of Economics to Despot Stefan Boulevard.
“By the end of 2026 or the beginning of 2027, we should have a serious, passable bridge,” Šapić said.
Source: https://www.danas.rs/vesti/ekonomija/javni-prevoz-aleksadnar-sapic-besplatana-prevoz/
Global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) will exceed $3 trillion this year, with experts expecting an increase in large deals in 2025 under Donald Trump’s presidency, writes the Financial Times. According to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the M&A market in 2024 increased by 11%. A year earlier, its volume fell below the $3 trillion mark for the first time in more than a decade.
The value of so-called mega deals (worth more than $5 billion) has increased by 19% since the beginning of this year. That’s what drove total M&A volume up, while the number of deals fell 20% to a nine-year low.
High-profile deals this year included U.S. Mars’ $35.9 billion purchase of Kellanova, which makes Pringles chips, among other things, and financial firm Capital One Financial’s $35.3 billion acquisition of rival Discover Financial Services. A number of experts hope Trump’s return to the White House will mean less regulatory scrutiny of big mergers after the skeptical stance taken by regulators during Joe Biden’s presidency.
“The regulatory environment is expected to be less burdensome,” believes Anu Iyengar, global head of advisory and M&A at JPMorgan Chase.
“There are many signs pointing to 2025 being a successful year,” said Centerview Partners co-president of investment banking Tony Kim.
Although M&A activity slowed in the past three months compared to the third quarter, a flurry of deals followed the U.S. election in November.
“Rumors of a collapse in the M&A market have been exaggerated to some extent,” says Stefan Feldgois, co-head of global M&A at Goldman Sachs. – Since the election, activity has picked up markedly.
The U.S. accounted for 46% of global M&A activity this year. At the same time, the amount of deals grew by 8%.
M&A volume in Asia-Pacific was down 2%, although Japan jumped 45% to a 19-year high. Europe recorded a 20% rise. Investment banking fees rose 12% year-on-year to $111 billion, above the average for the past decade, the FT noted.
Goldman Sachs Group maintained its position as the global leader in M&A advisory. Morgan Stanley displaced JPMorgan Chase & Co. to take second place.
Blumi LLC (Odesa), a manufacturer of sanitary and hygienic paper products under the Snow Panda brand, produced UAH 369 million worth of products in January-November 2024, up 3.7% compared to the same period in 2023.
According to statistics provided by UkrPapir Association to Interfax-Ukraine, the company slowed the growth rate of this indicator in 10 months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, which was 10.3% in the first 10 months of the year.
In physical terms, the production of toilet paper increased by 5.5% to 43.8 million rolls.
As reported, over 11 months, the main Ukrainian producers of sanitary paper products produced 584.84 million rolls of toilet paper, up 4.5% year-on-year.
Bloomi, which was registered in 2014, produces pulp-based sanitary products (toilet paper, napkins, towels) from imported raw paper. The products are manufactured at the facilities of Omega Brokers PE, one of the leading Ukrainian manufacturers of detergents, disinfectants and sanitary products.
In 2023, the company almost doubled its production volume by 2022 to UAH 367.3 million.
The company is co-owned equally (25% each) by four Odesa-based entrepreneurs.
An increase in the military tax will not reduce the investment attractiveness of real estate and will not increase the shadowing of the market, according to lawyers interviewed by Interfax-Ukraine.
“In my opinion, the increase in the military tax will not greatly affect the investment attractiveness of really good real estate. In addition, in most cases, at the investment stage, real estate is sold through investment funds, and the military duty is not paid at the initial purchase,” Ivan Marynyuk, Head of Tax Practice at Ilyashev & Partners Law Firm, told the agency.
He clarified that the obligation to pay the military duty in real estate sales transactions arises depending on the existence of an object of taxation by personal income tax (PIT). Certain transactions with residential real estate and land are exempt from personal income tax under certain conditions, so the military fee will not be paid.
At the same time, transactions on the sale of non-residential real estate are always subject to personal income tax and military duty, regardless of the period of ownership and the number of sales during the calendar year.
At the same time, commenting on possible ways to optimize taxes in real estate transactions, Mr. Maryniuk noted that the most common option is to understate the actual sale price of the property and make payments outside the contract, alternate residential real estate sales (if two or more properties are planned to be sold during the year) or gift transactions.
In his opinion, the increase in the military duty rate will not have a major impact on the real estate market and will not significantly contribute to the development of shadow transactions.
“Now real estate transactions are more regulated by the state for taxation purposes, there are certain minimum values that cannot be lowered. Transactions will be carried out in the same manner as before the military duty increase,” he said.
For his part, Sayenko Kharenko’s counsel Timur Enkhbayar said that the market cannot ignore the more than threefold increase in the military duty, but this does not apply to the entire real estate market.
“Large players with well-structured businesses from a corporate and tax perspective are unlikely to experience significant fluctuations. Roughly speaking, the sale price of residential and commercial real estate from developers or transaction prices in the corporate segment should not react to these changes,” he said.
At the same time, Enkhbayar noted that in certain niches, in particular when individuals sell investment property, it will indeed become a significant factor and lead to an increase in price in direct proportion to the increase in the military tax, but such an increase can be directly accounted for in the price.
“The seller can simply pass the costs on to the buyer without specifying their amount, and the actual price of the property will not change in such circumstances,” he explained.
The lawyer predicts that after the increase in the military duty, it is obvious that “at the household level, the most attractive objects on the secondary market will be those that have been owned for more than three years or are inherited.”
“In this case, the military fee, as well as personal income tax, is not paid at all. Also, military personnel are exempt from paying it, so their properties can also gain a certain advantage in the market in the eyes of potential buyers,” he said.
At the same time, commenting on possible ways to optimize taxation, Enkhbayar emphasized that the real estate industry has long had mechanisms that allow it to structure its operations in a completely legal manner from a corporate and tax perspective.
“For example, when contributing real estate to the authorized capital of an LLC, an investor may in the future sell a share in the authorized capital of such a company at the value of the contributed real estate, which will be a tax-neutral transaction. Of course, this is a somewhat complicated model for the sale of a single apartment by an individual. However, the law allows ordinary individuals to sell real estate and inherited real estate once every three years without tax. This is a fairly reasonable limit. Everything else is more related to activities that are somewhat speculative,” he said.
At the same time, the lawyer noted that in fact the effect of the increase in the military tax can be quite positive.
“An investor who deals with real estate purchase and sale transactions on a regular basis for profit has the right to confirm his or her expenses for the acquisition of the property, and then the tax will be paid only on the difference. In this case, the additional burden of the increased military tax in real money may be the equivalent of several hundred dollars. In turn, this may push investors who traditionally preferred optimization with lower purchase prices to come out of the shadows and conduct their transactions completely “in the white” to pay less taxes,” Enkhbayar summarized.
As reported, on October 10, the Verkhovna Rada adopted as a whole the draft law No. 11416-d on amendments to the Tax Code regarding the peculiarities of taxation during the martial law period. The document envisages an increase in the military tax from 1.5% to 5%, the bank profit tax to 50% in 2024, and an increase in a number of other taxes and fees starting from October 1 this year.
Novus Ukraine LLC has invested UAH 1 billion 360 million in business development in 2023-2024, said Oleksiy Panasenko, Deputy CEO for Operations at NOVUS, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“In total, NOVUS invested UAH 1 billion 360 million in 2023-2024 to expand its network, own logistics center, restore damaged and open 16 new stores, and implement an energy efficiency program. In 2025, we plan to invest in the development of the company, in various formats, despite the war. Our goal is to provide every customer with access to quality products,” he said.
He added that in 2024, 17 new facilities have already been opened, including 14 Mi Market convenience stores in the capital region. In particular, on December 18, Mi Market was opened in the residential complex Respublika with an area of 103.8 square meters, on December 20, the opening of NOVUS in Kyiv at 12 Petropavlivska Street was announced, and two more Mi Markets will open by the end of the year.
“The Mi Market format is highly efficient due to its compactness and focus on everyday needs. We see great prospects for the development of new residential areas and are actively working on an expansion strategy. We are planning to scale this format in densely populated areas, this year we will open two more, in 2025 – another 50 new Mi Market stores,” said Panasenko.
He noted that the Mi Market convenience store format provides for an area of 50 to 400 square meters. Investments in the opening of such a store, including renovation, purchase of equipment and other operating expenses, amount to about UAH 5 million.
The company is also preparing to open two NOVUS stores in the near future. One on Petropavlivska Street on December 20 with a total area of 600 square meters, and one on Sofiiska Borshchahivka in the first half of next year with a total area of over 2 thousand square meters.
“Both of them are equipped with modern energy-efficient equipment for uninterrupted operation and products of our own production,” Panasenko added.
He added that at this stage the company has no plans to expand to other regions.
“Currently, we are strategically focused on developing in the capital region and creating the most comfortable conditions for customers. Our main bet now is on organic growth and opening new stores in Kyiv and the region. We have no detailed plans to expand to other regions. At the same time, we are open to any proposals and are ready to consider new regions if it is economically feasible. It is important for us not just to enter a new market, but to be able to develop and build an effective business in this region,” said Panasenko.
The NOVUS supermarket chain is developed by BT Invest (Lithuania), a company established in 2008 by former Sandora shareholders Raimondas Tumenas and the late Igor Bezzub. As of the end of December, the chain had 115 locations (85 NOVUS, 28 Mi Market convenience stores and two Hapaika discounters).
According to Opendatabot, as of July 2021, the owner of Novus Ukraine with a 100% stake in the authorized capital was Consul Trade House CJSC (Vilnius, Lithuania). The ultimate beneficiaries are Marina Poznyakova, Agne Ruzgienė, and Raimondas Tumenas.
According to the company’s financial results, in 2023, its revenue increased by 47% to UAH 23.6 billion, while its net loss decreased by 87% to UAH 310.7 million.
