KYIV. Jan 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Public joint-stock company Agrarian Fund has fined a contract to supply 10,000 tonnes of flour to Angola, Board Chairman Andriy Radchenko has said in an interview with Dengi.ua publication.
“This year we signed a large contract with Angola to supply 10,000 tonnes of flour. We have starting implementing it,” he said.
He said that this is a pilot batch. If everything is good, the contract could be expanded in the range of goods and their volume.
In 2016, Agrarian Fund sold 240,000 tonnes of flour. The company’s market share grew to 12.2% compared to 11.8% in 2015.
Late 2016 the company launched sales of packaged flour (2 kg) under the Agrarian Fund brand.
“Revenue of the Agrarian fund in 2016 totaled UAH 2.14 billion. The projected net profit is UAH 48.5 million. Our financial target was met by 101%,” Radchenko said.
In 2016 the company sent UAH 1.5 billion to finance farmers and signed 190 contracts to buy 500,000 tonnes of wheat, rye and buckwheat.
KYIV. Jan 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian-Arab Business Council recently created has initiated the creation of a bank in Ukraine, the founders of which could be large Arab businessmen.
Council President Sheikh Imad Abu Al-Rub gave the information at a first meeting of the Council on Thursday with participation of Ukrainian and Arab business circles, the press service of the Construction Academy of Ukraine that took part in the meeting.
“We have an idea to create a bank in Ukraine with 100% Arab capital. This would facilitate the entrance of many Arab companies to the Ukrainian market,” he said.
Sheikh Imad Abu Al-Rub said that during negotiations representatives of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) and the Ukrainian government preliminarily backed the idea.
He said that at its first meetings the Ukrainian-Arab Business Council is solving tactic tasks – shaping the agenda and establishing contacts between Ukrainian and Arab business circles.
Its core goal is to promote the attraction of at least $100 billion of investment to Ukraine.
“Arab companies would like to invest in agriculture, processing industry and large investment projects. Ukraine is a very rich country, rich of resources and people,” he said.
He said that Ukraine is to pass laws protecting foreign investment, stamp out corruption in the judicial system and facilitate visa issue for business circles.
In turn, Vice President of the Construction Academy of Ukraine Viktor Leschynsky who took part in the meeting confirmed that now Arab companies are actively looking for a possibility of investing in many economic sectors of Ukraine, including industry and construction.
“For example, the Construction Academy of Ukraine is to act the key expert body in appraising construction projects aimed at attracting investment from Arab countries,” he said.
He said that first negotiations regarding construction of grain terminals, elevators and flour mills were held.
“I also heard that Arab businessmen showed their interest in a possibility of building roads on the concession terms, chemical and steel companies. They have a large potential,” he said.
KYIV. Jan 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Municipal institution Mykolaiv Development Agency has designed 16 business projects to attract investors to the city, Agency Director Vasyl Hoshovsky has said.
“These are turn-key businesses ready to be introduced as investment projects. Today we have drawn up 16 projects. The main thing is that we have worked out a scheme how we can design these projects and we will work on it in the future,” Hoshovsky said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine in Kyiv on Thursday.
He said that first 16 business cases are first linked to those spheres of business which are of top priority for Mykolaiv today and which have advantages compared to other cities and regions of Ukraine.
“These are projects with investments from $1 million to around $50 million. The key spheres are small-size shipbuilding, agricultural product processing and agroindustrial complex. A project to build a class A shopping and leisure center is also proposed. This is one of the largest projects in the business cases,” Hoshovsky said.
He said that the website Invest in Mykolaiv was designed for potential investors. The website is being tested and will be launched soon. Investors will be able to see land parcels on the city’s map that will be put up for auction. The parcels can be used for construction and municipally-owned facilities. They will be put up for sale or leasing.
Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said that city authorities have shaped the first version of the investment map of the city intended to show competitive advantages of Mykolaiv to potential investors.
“This is a first tool of this level in Mykolaiv. It makes clear the things we have not only for residents of the city, but for people who are looking for territories for investment,” Senkevych said.
He said that in 2016 private investment in Mykolaiv totaled $320 million. Most of it was sent to develop the port zone of the city and construction of terminals.
Senkevych said that in 2017 investment in the city could fall, as there are no large projects that would be launched soon.
“There is the internal investor – the company Nibulon. It seeks to invest in its fleet expansion and starts river communications… I think that the zone adjacent to the port near rivers will start developing,” he said.
KYIV. Jan 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Pfeifer & Langen (Germany) has closed a deal on the acquisition of six sugar factories in Ternopil region, previously owned by T-Tsukor holding.
“We’ve purchased six T-Tsukor factories: Borschiv, Buchach, Zbarazh, Kozova, Lanivtsi and Khorostkiv sugar factories (Ternopil region),” Director of Radekhiv Sugar LLC Vitaliy Sikorsky told Interfax-Ukraine.
The financial partner of the transaction was Bank Pivdennyi.
As reported, T-Tsukor, which owned the abovementioned six plants in Ternopil region and Horodenka plant in Ivano-Frankivsk region, was controlled by the Huta family.
Until 2014 T-Tsukor sugar holding had been one of three leaders in sugar production in Ukraine, but in 2014 the factories were standing idle.
Pfeifer&Langen is the largest European producer of sugar. The company, in particular, owns sugar factories in Germany, Poland, Romania, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. In Ukraine, it owns Radekhiv sugar factory (Lviv region) and Chortkiv sugar factory (Ternopil region).
KYIV. Jan 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Construction of a new grain terminal of Novotech-Terminal LLC with a projected annual capacity of around 3 million tonnes has been started at Odesa maritime merchandise port.
According to a posting on the website of bank Pivdenny, which acts as a financial partner of Novotech-Terminal jointly with Tekom-Lease, the terminal will be built in four stages and ends in 2019.
The new terminal will be located at berths 25 and 26 of the port. It will service vessels of up to 250 meters longs and water draft of up to 11 meters. The terminal will have a port elevator with a storage capacity of 110,000 tonnes.
“The construction projects has passed all the required examinations and approvals, and the land parcel where the facility will be built was leased by Odesa Regional Administration for a long period of time,” the bank said.
Novotech-Terminal stevedoring company was founded in October 2004. It operates at berths 22, 25 and 26 of Odesa seaport. The company handles exported, imported and transit cargos.
DAVOS. Jan 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The sector of Ukrainian product IT companies thanks to a rapid growth in recent years in terms of cost became comparable with the sector of outsourcing IT companies and has a significant potential of growth in the light of experience accumulated, the formation of an appropriate business environment and a high interest of venture investors, head of the supervisory board of the Ukrainian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (UVCA) Andriy Kolodiuk considers.
“There appear more and more product companies. My total evaluation of product companies exceeds $2.5 billion: one deal with Looksery is $150 million, but we also have a full list of 3,000 start ups and companies in Ukraine. Therefore I am confident that the aggregate value of them has already exceeded $2.5 billion,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine on the sidelines of the Ukrainian lunch organized by the Pinchuk Foundation in Davos.
Kolodiuk, being also a venture investor, founder and managing partner of AVentures Capital, noted that venture investors invest only in product companies and do not invest in outsourcing.
“Large funds such as (George) Soros Fund, Horizon Capital invest in outsourcing – this is another story. And we invest in product companies because this is the exit [the possibility of selling to the very high profitability], on which this business is built,” he said.
According to him, among the projects available in the portfolio of AVentures, for example, Petcube will cost at least $600 million, and this success encourages other investors to invest.
