Source: National Bank of Ukraine
The owner of the Ukrlandfarming agricultural holding and former owner of VAB Bank and Bank Financial Initiative Oleh Bakhmatiuk has confirmed his readiness to repay UAH 19 billion of debts of these banks to the state in the full amount if the debts are restructured for 10 years at low rate. He has accused the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) of the unwillingness to peacefully settle the dispute.
“I am ready to pay all the debts of VAB bank and Bank Financial Initiative in full to the state, but the NBU even does not want to come to the negotiating table,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
Bakhmatiuk pointed out his readiness to provide a business model for repayment of these UAH 19 billion of debts, recalling that Ukrlandfarming continues generating the turnover of about $1 billion per year, its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) are about $200 million, and the potential value of the agricultural holding may be about $2 billion.
Previously American privately held global corporation Cargill has withdrawn from among the shareholders of Ukrainian-based UkrLandFarming (ULF) agrarian holding, according to a ULF financial report for 2016. Cargill’s subsidiary, Cargill Financial Services International Inc. by the end of 2015, had held 1,668,749 ULF shares, or 5% of the total number. The remaining 95%, or 31,706,245 shares, were held by UK-based Avonex Limited. By the end of 2016, the number of shares owned by Avonex Limited had not changed, whereas the package held by Cargill was transferred to Cyprus-based Quickcom Limited’s ownership. The report says that the sole owner of Avonex Limited and Quickcom Limited is Oleh Bakhmatiuk.
Cargill acquired a 5% stake in ULF early in 2014 for $200 million. Based on the sum of the deal, the total value of the holding was assessed at $4 billion.
Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan plans to announce the start of the Hyperloop project in Ukraine. The announcement entitled “Hyperloop in Ukraine” appeared on the website of the ministry on Wednesday without giving further details. The minister wrote on his Facebook page “Really. Inception.” Meanwhile, Ukraine is not along the countries candidates for this project. The closest country that could participate in the project is Poland.
The press service of the ministry denied giving any comments to Interfax-Ukraine. Interfax-Ukraine also sent a request to Hyperloop. Hyperloop is a project of vacuum train proposed in 2012-2013 by U.S. venture capitalist Elon Musk. At present, the project has not been implemented.
The Kovalska Industrial and Construction Group (Kyiv) plans to increase production of flagstone under the Avenue brand and elements for landscape design by 30%, Director General of Kovalska Group Serhiy Pylypenko has said.
“The increase in flagstone production and elements of landscape design for the Avenue brand and elements for landscaping was more than 25% in 2017. In the middle of 2018, we plan to increase the production capacity by 30% thanks to strong demand last year. The amount of investment will be around EUR 5 million,” Pylypenko said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
In addition, he said, the company is exploring the possibility of launching production of aerated concrete.
“We are considering the launch of production of aerated concrete, which does not require a sophisticated base, but we need a separate plant for this. Our enterprises have already exhausted the opportunities for expansion. Now we can only talk about updating of existing equipment,” the director general said.
Kovalska Industrial and Construction Group was established in 2006 and it has been operating in the market of ready-mixed concrete and reinforced concrete products since 1956.
Net revenue of JSC Kyivstar in 2017 totaled UAH 16.54 billion, which is 10.6% more than in 2016.
According to a report of VEON, the parent company of the operator, Kyivstar’s revenue from provision of mobile communications services grew by 10.7%, to UAH 15.338 billion, and from provision of fixed-line communications services – by 7.6%, to UAH 1.132 billion. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in 2017 grew by 18.15, accounting for UAH 9.221 billion, EBITDA margin rose by 3.5 percentage points, to 55.7%.
Capital expenses in 2017 (not including the fee for licenses) fell by 2%, totaling UAH 2.618 billion.
The number of mobile communications subscribers in 2017 grew by 1.7%, to 26.5 million. The number of fixed-line communications subscribers did not change, being 800,000 users.
In Q4 2017, revenue of the operator increased 10.7%, to UAH 4.297 billion, including UAH 3.986 billion from mobile communications (10.7% up) and UAH 285 million from fixed-line communications (5.4% up). EBITDA in Q4 2017 grew by 39.1%, to UAH 2.494 billion, EBITDA margin – by 11.8 percentage points, to 58%. Capital investment amounted to UAH 534 million (36.2% down year-over-year).
In Q4 2017, the average revenue per user (ARPU) grew by 9.1%, to UAH 49, and the minutes of use (MoU) by 4.3%, to 589 minutes.
According to the press release of the parent company, growth of revenue was driven by continued strong growth of mobile data revenue, which increased by 64.5% as a result of growing data usage, and successful marketing activities driven by the continued 3G network roll-out and data-centric tariffs. Kyivstar continued to roll out its 3G network, reaching a population coverage of 74% up from 61% in the same quarter last year.
The state-owned enterprise (SOE) Ukrainian Sea Port Authority seeks to post UAH 3.3 billion of net profit in 2018, UAH 8.3 billion of revenue and UAH 4.5 billion to pay taxes and duties to the national budget, Head of the Ukrainian Sea Port Authority Raivis Veckagans has said.
“We are planning a slight increase in freight traffic, but there is a decision of the Cabinet of Ministers to reduce port dues by 20% and, accordingly, to cut dividend payments from 75% to 50%, which will affect the financial plan. As for capital investment, which is planned in the amount of about UAH 4.3 billion, we will get a little extra resource, which we will send to its implementation,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the head of the authority, funds that were announced for capital investment in 2017, but not used, will be used to implement projects planned for this year.
In addition, Veckagans said that, according to data for 2017, revenue of the authority amounted to UAH 8.3 billion, profit – UAH 3.5 billion, and it paid UAH 4.8 billion to the state budget, including all taxes and duties.
“We have disbursed UAH 1.6 billion of capital investments, which is almost three times more than in 2016. This is less than it was planned: in the general plan we had UAH 3.9 billion, but since we adopted it in the middle of the year, we did not have time to implement it. Therefore, we are pleased with the decision of the Cabinet of Ministers that the financial plan for 2018 was approved as early as December 2017. I hope that we will be able to implement all plans and implement the projects this year,” Veckagans said.
