Ribas Hotels Group LLC (Odesa), the managing company of the national network of three- and four-star hotel and restaurant complexes, plans to complete the acquisition of a hotel in Bukovel, Ivano-Frankivsk region, by the end of 2018, and in two or three years to gain a foothold in all resort regions of Ukraine.
“We are positioning ourselves as a network of tourist-oriented hotels. Therefore the main focus is on Western Ukraine: in September we are buying a hotel in Bukovel, we are negotiating for the purchase of a 50% stake in one of the largest hotels in Lviv. We also plan to launch a hostel or an apart-hotel. We are looking to the hotels for rent in Kyiv,” Artur Lupashko, the founder of Ribas Hotels Group, told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to him, the opening of a hotel in Bukovel is scheduled for the third and fourth quarters of 2019. The facility is unfinished and it will take eight or nine months to complete all the works.
Lupashko added the company also plans to enter the international market.
Ribas Hotels Group also plans to develop a franchise direction.
Ribas Hotels Group provides comprehensive management services, the services of exclusive booking, franchising, design.
VUSO Insurance Company (Kyiv) in January-June 2018 paid UAH 6.9 million on direct settlement of cases on compulsory insurance of motor vehicle owners’ liability (OSAGO), which is 5.75 times more than in the same period a year earlier.
According to a press release of the insurer, the company’s customers began to use the method of direct settlement of losses more often and apply for compensation of damage to their insurer but not the company where the policy of the person guilty in the accident was drawn up. In this way, VUSO settled 394 insurance cases in the first half of the year, while a year earlier the figure stood at 97.
In total for the reporting period, the company collected UAH 28.5 million of premiums on OSAGO, which is 19% more than in the same period a year earlier. Some 1,717 insurance cases were settled, which is 7% more than for the same period of 2017 (1,605).
The company notes that the average amount of compensation for material damage on road accidents for this type of insurance in the first half of the year increased by 2%, to UAH 13,900.
There are both economic and strategic components in the issue of concern for the Nord Stream 2 project, while Ukraine needs to seek alternative natural gas resources, Assistant to the U.S. President for National Security Affairs John Bolton has stated.
We with the prime minister of Ukraine held a very interesting discussion on energy resources and the role Ukraine plays, what we can do in future, Bolton said at a press conference in Kyiv.
According to him, U.S. President Donald Trump, expressing concern about Nord Stream 2, stresses “not only the economic importance of this issue in Europe … but also strategic.”
Undoubtedly, this is what is connected with the monopoly of a supplier of critical energy resources … Why do you, Europe, voluntarily bind yourself even more to Russian energy suppliers? An alternative option for Ukraine and other countries is to find other natural gas sources and resources, he added.
He stressed this is the matter of policy, the government of Ukraine to look for alternative energy resources so that there is no dependence on Russia.
Bolton noted that if Nord Stream 2 is built, then Ukraine will remain in a situation of risk that Russia, even if it undertakes, will not supply sufficient volumes of gas.
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As a result of the next wave of privatization, investors who are ready to invest in their development of Ukrainian companies should become their new owners, EBRD Managing Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus Francis Malige is convinced.
Our task is to organize privatization in such a way that a real investor who will invest money will come, we need to prepare this process, he told Interfax-Ukraine.
On the one hand, it is unacceptable that sometimes this process takes so much time, but on the other hand – I would not want to see that the new owners of the companies have nothing to do with them, investors should be real, Malige noted.
As reported, in early 2018 the working group on privatization was updated. It included representatives of the Reforms Delivery Office under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, SAGSUR, the World Bank, the EBRD, the International Monetary Fund, the USAID, and the EU Delegation to Ukraine.
The working group was renewed to effectively coordinate the authorities, prepare recommendations and proposals for the draft resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers on privatization and conditions of the sale of public property, attract international financial and technical assistance to prepare for privatization and put up the objects for sale and analyze the main problems of ensuring transparent and competitive privatization.
EBRD, FINANCE DEVELOPMENT, INVESTORS, OWNERS, PRIVATIZATION, UKRAINIAN ENTERPRISES
