Mriya agroholding in June 2018 received an offer to acquire the entire business and assets of the company from an international strategic investor who has experience of operations in Ukraine. “The cost of this offer envisages (if the transaction is signed) compensation to holders of bonds issued by Mriya Farming in connection with the restructuring of about 50 to 60 cents per U.S. dollar of face value of new bonds outstanding after the restructuring is completed (expenses related to the transaction deducted),” the press service of the agroholding reported.
The offer involves a number of conditions, including the successful completion of the restructuring of the company and its subsidiaries, as well as obtaining all necessary regulatory approvals. Secured debt is proposed for acceptation by the strategic investor and servicing in accordance with existing or other agreements between the potential buyer and secured creditors.
“The company intends to enter into negotiations with the offeror on the terms of the potential deal to approve the necessary documentation for the binding offer. After the completion of the restructuring any sale of the company is to be agreed with the shareholders of the company in accordance with the terms of the issue of new bonds and shareholders’ agreement of Mriya Farming adopted in line with the terms of the restructuring,” Mriya said.
At the same time, the agricultural holding said that the offer is not a guarantee of the signing of the deal, a condition of which is still reaching an agreement on the final terms of the documents required for the transaction.
Mriya reported that Rothschild is the sole financial advisor, and Hogan Lovells acts as a legal advisor in matters related to the sale. As reported, in May 2017, Mriya and IFC approved the conditions for restructuring of Mriya’s debt. The parties agreed to split the debt into a secured and unsecured part. They also stipulated terms for restructuring the secured part of the debt. Mriya’s unsecured debt to IFC will be restructured on common conditions for all unsecured creditors.
Mriya’s total debt is $1.087 billion, of which $46 million is loans for working capital, $7 million for leasing of agricultural machinery, $130 million is secured loans, and $904 million is unsecured loans.
After the restructuring, the amount of secured loans will be reduced to $62 million, unsecured ones to $213 million. Mriya is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding founded by Ivan Huta in 1992. Today, its land bank is 165,000 ha in Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Lviv and Rivne regions. The capacity of its grain storage facilities is estimated at 380,000 tonnes.
The Swedish owner of the clothing chain Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) plans in August 2018 to open the first store in Ukraine in the Lavina Mall trade and entertainment center. “We are extremely happy to finally open our first store in Ukraine! It is a great honor for us to bring style and conscious shopping to Kyiv and inspire fans of fashion for self-expression,” H&M CEO in Ukraine Dominique Fantaccino said.
According to the report, the total area of the outlet will be 2,900 square meters. It will include collections of fashionable clothes, as well as household goods under the H&M Home brand.
H&M was founded in Sweden in 1947. In addition to the H&M brand, the retailer also develops other fashion brands: COS, Monki, Weekday, Cheap Monday, Other Stories and H&M Home, as well as ARKET. The H&M group of companies has 47 online platforms and more than 4,700 stores, including franchising, in 69 international markets. In 2017 the company’s sales amounted to SEK 232 billion (including VAT).
The State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) estimates the potential amount of proceeds from small-scale privatization at UAH 1.5-1.7 billion, Acting Head of the SPF Vitaliy Trubarov has said. “Maksym Nefyodov Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade expects that we will receive UAH 3 billion from small privatization. According to our modest estimates, the amount may not be so optimistic, it will be UAH 1.5-1.7 billion,” he said on the air of Channel Five.
At the same time, he noted that there are fears of failure to implement the plan for large-scale privatization this year. “Is there a chance that we will not fulfill the planned task? Yes, unfortunately, there is such a chance, because we lost half a year due to the fact that privatization of some of the objects could not start on time, and some of the objects fell out of the list,” Trubarov said.
In particular, he noted that the list of large-scale privatization for 2018 does not contain a number of large agrarian objects. “For example, the Agrarian Fund or the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine. They perform a certain role related to food security, which now does not allow putting these objects up for sale. At the request of the ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, these objects have been removed from this list for the time being and transferred to 2019,” he said.
ESTIMATES POTENTIAL REVENUES, SMALL-SCALE PRIVATIZATION, SPF
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) on June 1 signed a contract to provide the largest Ukrainian vertically integrated tomato paste producer, Agrofusion, with a long-term loan of $17 million. According to information on the IFC’s website, the funds are intended to expand the company in 2018-2019 and refinance its obligations. The total cost of the project is estimated at $30 million.
The IFC said this is the third project with Agrofusion.
Agrofusion is the largest vertically integrated producer of tomato paste in Ukraine. It was founded by businessman Serhiy Sypko in 2007. Agrofusion includes three tomato paste production plants with a total production capacity of about 750,000 tonnes of tomatoes per season, as well as agribusinesses in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, cultivating 25,000 hectares of irrigated land, and two hothouse farms. In 2017, the company expanded its capacity and reached 79,443 tonnes of paste (64,800 tonnes in 2016). Some 70% of its products are exported to 35 countries.
Acting Head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) Vitaliy Trubarov has signed orders on the privatization of 22 large facilities. “There is no way back. The fund signed 22 orders for the privatization of large facilities. This is the first large list of enterprises for sale for the last ten years,” he said on Facebook. As reported, the SPF intends by July 1 to declare tenders for the selection of advisors for the privatization of 22 facilities.
At the end of May, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine published a list of enterprises of “big” privatization for 2018, which included 23 enterprises. The approved list, in particular, included five regional energy companies, Centrenergo, Odesa Port-Side Chemical Plant, Turboatom, Zaporizhia Titanium and Magnesium Combine, United Mining and Chemical Company, and Sumykhimprom.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will pay a working visit to Turkey on Tuesday, June 12, to participate in the ceremony to launch the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP). According to the press service of the head of state, Poroshenko is making the visit at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The program of the visit foresees a number of bilateral meetings between the Ukrainian president and the leaders of foreign countries.
