Former head of United Mining and Chemical Company Oleksandr Hladushko has denied allegations of withdrawing funds from the company by its incumbent management.
In a comment to the Interfax-Ukraine agency he claims that there were no overdue receivables for products at the time of transfer of control to the new management in February 2020.
“For a year now, United Mining and Chemical Company has been managed by new managers. And suddenly we learn about a debt of $ 38 million for 2019, they have been modestly silent about all this time? This alogism can only be explained by the fact that on the eve of privatization, the team of Artur Somov [the incumbent head of the company] is trying to shift responsibility for their managerial mistakes onto their predecessors,” the report says.
According to Hladushko, at the time of his team’s departure from the company, it was profitable and financially secure: by the end of the first quarter of 2020, it received UAH 245 million in net profit, the balance of payments of the enterprise was positive.
“By January, the company’s accounts had over UAH 405.3 million. This was enough to keep production and supply running smoothly, pay salaries, and taxes for three to four months,” the ex-head says.
Commenting on the news about the shutdown of Vilnohirsk GOK in May 2020 and non-payment of wages to miners, and later – about production downtime due to an unstable financial support, Hladushko expressed opinion that the above funds were spent, and new ones were not earned, which led to cash breaks in the company.
The ex-head also named among the achievements of his team the growth of income of the company almost twofold – up to UAH 3.5 billion, payments to budgets almost fourfold – up to UAH 1.4 billion, investments in production by 8.3 times, up to UAH 749.6 million, as well as an increase in the value of assets by more than four times – up to UAH 3.4 billion.
Acting chairman of the board of United Mining and Chemical Company Artur Somov said earlier that the company intends to collect $ 38 million through the International Commercial Arbitration Court under contracts with the companies Bollwerk Finanzierungs- und Industriemanagement AG (Austria) and Defessa Trans F.Z.E (the UAE), through which the ex-management of United Mining and Chemical Company laundered funds from the enterprise.
Earlier, PrJSC United Mining and Chemical Company, which managed Vilnohirsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant (Zhytomyr region), initiated the process of collecting a debt of $ 38 million, according to the company, withdrawn by the previous management.
The state enterprise United Mining and Chemical Company began its actual activity in August 2014, when the government of Ukraine decided to transfer the property complexes of Vilnohirsk and Irshansk GOKs to it. On December 8, 2016, the state enterprise was transformed into PJSC United Mining and Chemical Company, on December 26, 2018 – into PrJSC.
United Mining and Chemical Company sells its products to more than 30 countries of the world. The main sales markets are the EU, China, Turkey, as well as the United States and African countries.
In August 2016, the government included United Mining and Chemical Company in the list of companies that are subject to privatization in 2017. Its terms were postponed several times, most recently due to the coronavirus crisis and quarantine. BDO Corporate Finance as part of the consortium Baker McKenzie, Baker Tilly Ukraine and Asset Expertise, prepares the company for privatization.
The management of the SPF proposes to put United Mining and Chemical Company up for sale in the first half of this year, declares about 15 applicants for the enterprise and predicts the starting price of the object from UAH 3 billion to UAH 5 billion.
