In the 2023-2024 marketing year (MY), Agrotrade exported more than 390 thsd tonnes of grain, up 10% compared to the previous season, the company’s press service reported on its Facebook page.
According to the report, 51.7% of all exports were the company’s own agricultural products, 48.3% were from third-party producers. The main buyers of grain were the EU, North Africa and the Middle East.
“Summarizing the results of the last season, I would like to note that the opening of the Ukrainian grain corridor and its rhythmic operation made our work much easier. It has added predictability, so we can now plan deliveries for a longer period. This allowed us to export more grain than we had forecast. In the new season, we expect that the company’s trade structure will partially return to the pre-war format – sales on EXW and CPT bases will reappear, and forward contracts will increase, as the market situation stabilizes and competition intensifies,” said Andriy But, Director of Foreign Trade Department of Agrotrade Group.
Among the company’s products, corn, wheat, soybeans, and rapeseed were in the highest demand among buyers. In total, in the 2023/24 season, Agrotrade exported grain to 14 countries.
The Agrotrade Group is a vertically integrated holding company with a full agro-industrial cycle (production, processing, storage and trade of agricultural products). It cultivates over 70 thousand hectares of land in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava and Kharkiv regions. Its main crops are sunflower, corn, winter wheat, soybeans and rapeseed. It has its own network of elevators with a simultaneous storage capacity of 570 thousand tons.
The group also produces hybrid seeds of corn and sunflower, barley, and winter wheat. In 2014, a seed plant with a capacity of 20 thousand tons of seeds per year was built on the basis of Kolos seed farm (Kharkiv region). In 2018, Agrotrade launched its own brand Agroseeds on the market.
Vsevolod Kozhemiako is the founder and CEO of Agrotrade.
British mobile operator Vodafone Group Plc increased its revenue by 2.8% in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 and confirmed its financial performance forecast for the entire fiscal year.
According to a Vodafone press release, revenue for the quarter ended June 30 reached €9.04 billion, up from €8.79 billion a year earlier.
Service revenue, the company’s key indicator, increased by 3.2% to €7.47 billion. In organic terms, the figure increased by 5.4%.
Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization and leasing (EBITDAaL) increased by 2.1% to EUR 2.68 billion. At the same time, the organic growth of this indicator amounted to 5.1%, the report says.
Operating profit jumped 42.9% to €1.55 billion.
In fiscal year 2025, Vodafone still plans to generate adjusted EBITDAaL of about 11 billion euros. Adjusted free cash flow is expected to be at least €2.4 billion.
Vodafone shares are losing 1.8% in London on Thursday. Since the beginning of the year, the company’s capitalization has increased by 1%, while the FTSE 100 index has added 4.6% over the same period.
The State Regulatory Service (SRS) has declared the order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MES) banning full-time contractual postgraduate studies illegal. This is stated in the regulator’s letter No. 2886/20-24 of July 19, 2024, published on the Kommersant website.
The special order of Minister Oksen Lisovyi deprived full-time graduate students of the right to study on a contract basis. In response to this appeal from the NGO Youth Human Rights Agency, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal instructed the regulator to consider it. Representatives of the Association of Student Governments and the Union of Rectors of Higher Education Institutions also appealed to the SRS.
They emphasized that the actions of the Ministry’s leadership violated the Constitution and laws of Ukraine, which could lead to an outflow of academics and dismissal of employees of higher education institutions.
According to the applicants, such actions of the Ministry of Education and Science will cause an outflow of young scientists to foreign universities, significant losses of extra-budgetary funding for Ukrainian universities and, as a result, the forced dismissal of some research and teaching staff and deterioration of the prospects for the development of domestic science.
The SRS noted that the orders of the Ministry of Education and Science contradict international treaties ratified by Ukraine, violate the right to education, the principle of non-discrimination and proportionality of restrictions in a state of emergency.
The state regulator has concluded that the provisions of the MES orders violate international treaties and agreements ratified by Ukraine regarding restrictions on the right to education, do not ensure equality and non-discrimination, and do not comply with the principles of proportionality and justification of restrictions under martial law. The Ministry of Justice should review and cancel these orders in the near future.
Metinvest Group’s Central, Ingulets and Northern Mining and Processing Plants (MPPs), which were transformed into United Mining and Processing Plant (UMPP), paid UAH 2.8 billion in taxes in January-June 2024.
According to the company’s press release on Thursday, in the same period of 2023, YuGOK, Central GOK and InGOK transferred UAH 1.4 billion to the state and municipal budgets.
“Despite the ongoing war, economic difficulties and challenges, Metinvest’s Kryvyi Rih enterprises remain one of the largest taxpayers and a strong pillar of the region and Ukraine,” the company said.
It is specified that in the first half of 2024, the main sources of budget revenues from Northern GOK, Central GOK and InGOK were the subsoil use tax – UAH 1.7 billion. The treasury also received a single social contribution of almost UAH 357 million and personal income tax of UAH 318 million. The list of the largest contributions includes land fees and environmental tax.
According to the press release, Kryvyi Rih enterprises remain the largest employer in the region. In addition, the GOKs continue to support Kryvyi Rih and the community by implementing joint humanitarian, educational and infrastructure projects.
As a reminder, in the first half of 2024, Metinvest Group increased its tax payments to the Ukrainian budget by one and a half times, to UAH 10 billion.
As reported, Metinvest is implementing a new model for the operation of Kryvyi Rih mining enterprises, uniting mining and processing plants in Kryvyi Rih under one management.
“Given the current challenges, with no objective way to bring the workload of the GOKs to the optimal level, we are looking for the effect of combining their capabilities and business processes. To this end, the company sees its GOKs not as separate facilities with separate teams, but as one large production site and one large team, and tries to use the advantages of each GOK in a single technological chain. The creation of a single administrative and management center, so to speak, a consolidated GOK, will significantly simplify, speed up and increase the efficiency of these processes, as well as contribute to the creation of new synergies between the enterprises,” explained Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, earlier.
In 2023, Metinvest’s Kryvyi Rih enterprises paid a total of UAH 4.6 billion in taxes and fees to the budgets of all levels.
“Metinvest comprises mining and metallurgical enterprises located in Ukraine, Europe and the United States. Its major shareholders are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%), which jointly manage it.
Metinvest Holding LLC is the management company of Metinvest Group.
In the second quarter of 2024, Astarta Agro Holding sold 141.9 thousand tons of sugar, up 106% year-on-year, and increased sugar sales by 77% to 211.4 thousand tons over two quarters.
According to the company’s announcement on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, the average sugar price in the second quarter decreased by 13% compared to the same period last year and by 10% over six months.
Astarta’s corn sales in the second quarter increased by 109% to 123 thousand tons, up from 58.8 thousand tons a year earlier. In the first half of the year, corn sales increased by 18% to 337.9 thsd tonnes.
At the same time, sales of sunflower seeds decreased by 98% to 705 thsd tonnes, while their selling price increased by 20%. In the first half of the year, sunflower sales decreased by 67% to 20.066 thsd tonnes, while prices were 20% lower than last year.
Sales of soybean oil in the second quarter decreased by 24% to 44.788 thousand tons, while prices also fell by 10%. Sales in the first half of 2024 increased by 21% year-on-year to 27.142 thousand tons, but prices were 15% lower.
In addition, in the second quarter, Astarta reduced sales of soybean flour by 24% to 44,788 thousand tons, while prices were 10% lower than last year. In the first half of 2024, they were 10% lower compared to the same period last year.
The agricultural holding’s sales of milk in the second quarter increased by 4% to 29.42 thousand tons, while the price of the product increased by 20%. Sales in the first half of 2024 increased by 5% to 60,013 thousand tons, prices – by 21%.
In 2023, Astarta, the largest sugar producer in Ukraine, reduced its net profit by 5.0% to EUR 61.9 million, and its EBITDA decreased by 6.1% to EUR 145.77 million, while revenue increased by 21.3% to EUR 618.93 million.
Astarta CEO Viktor Ivanchik’s family currently owns 40.68% of the company. Fairfax Financial Holdings is also a major shareholder with 29.91%, and another 2.12% of shares belong to the company itself and were previously bought back as part of a buyback.
According to the National Bank of Ukraine, as of October 1, 2023, Credit Agricole Bank ranked 11th in terms of total assets (UAH 100.36 billion) among 63 operating banks in the country, with 141 branches. The bank is fully owned by French Credit Agricole SA.
KMZ Industries (Karlivka Machine-Building Plant, KMZ, Poltava region) has fulfilled another export contract for the comprehensive supply of equipment for the construction of an elevator complex in Romania, according to the plant’s website.
“We manufactured and shipped silos, transportation and gravity equipment to the customer in a timely manner,” the statement said.
The supplied equipment includes two conical silos with a diameter of 5.5 m and eight tiers with a capacity of 210 tons of wheat grain each, two elevators with a capacity of 50 tons per hour, an elevator tower, two chain conveyors with a capacity of 50 tons per hour, a conveyor gallery and a set of gravity equipment.
The press service notes that the facility is actively undergoing installation work and this season the silos will receive the first grain stored there before being sent for processing.
“The peculiarity of Romanian farmers is their desire to avoid earthworks as much as possible, so the acceptance of agricultural products at their elevator complexes is carried out using an above-ground silo and elevators without burial. In particular, at the request of the customer, all metal structures (elevator tower, gallery, supports) were also designed and manufactured by KMZ Industries,” Oleksandr Tkachenko, Head of Exports at KMZ Industries, was quoted as saying in the statement.
According to him, the logistics of shipping elevator equipment from Ukraine to Romania is well established, and there are no problems with it.
“The delivery time may still be affected by the lack of truck drivers authorized to cross the border and queues at border crossings, which makes transportation take more than a week.
Therefore, both Romanian customers and Ukrainian producers take these factors into account to avoid the risk of extending the construction time,” Tkachenko added.
As reported, KMZ Industries carried out the first comprehensive supply of a set of elevator equipment for a farm in Romania in 2020, as part of the contract concluded after winning the tender.
KMZ Industries is the largest manufacturer of elevator equipment in Ukraine and produces a full range of equipment, including silos, grain dryers, transport equipment and separators, as well as provides automation and installation services. According to the company, it has sold more than 5,000 facilities. In 2012, the company acquired the assets of Brice-Baker (UK), one of the leading suppliers of elevator equipment in Europe, and in April 2021 announced a merger with the elevator business of Variant Agro Bud LLC.
According to the Clarity Project, in 2023, KMZ reduced its net profit by 3.9 times compared to 2022, to UAH 15.8 million, with revenue falling by 20% to UAH 650.2 million.
The plant ended the first quarter of this year with a net profit of UAH 35.4 million, 3.9 times more than in January-March 2023, and revenue increased by 3.3% to UAH 71.7 million.
