Retail trade in Ukraine (legal entities and individual entrepreneurs) in January-August 2019 increased by 9.9% in comparable prices compared with January-August 2018, the State Statistics Service said on Friday. In August 2019 alone, retail trade turnover grew by 3.4% compared with the previous month and by 6.7% year-over-year (August 2019 to August 2018).
The largest growth in retail turnover in January-August 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 was recorded in Vinnitsa region (by 18.2%), Ternopol region (by 17.1%), Kyiv region (by 16%), Cherkasy region (by 14.2%), Luhansk region (by 13.7%), Odesa region (by 13.3%), Dnipropetrovsk region (by 13%), Khmelnitsky region (by 11.1%), Donetsk region (by 10.5%), Rivne region (by 10.3%), and the city of Kyiv (by 14.5%).
The State Statistics Service says that its report does not include data from the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol and occupied districts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Official rates of banking metals from national bank as of September 23
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
National bank of Ukraine’s official rates as of 23/09/19
Source: National Bank of Ukraine
The Individuals’ Deposit Guarantee Fund is completing the liquidation of Bank Starokyivsky (Kyiv), according to the website of the fund.
According to the report, on September 17, the liquidator of Bank Starokyivsky submitted documents to the state registrar of legal entities, individual entrepreneurs and public organizations for state registration of the bank’s termination as a legal entity in the unified state register of legal entities, individual entrepreneurs and public organizations.
The fund also announced the completion of payment of guaranteed amounts of compensation to the bank’s depositors.
As reported, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in September 2014 decided to liquidate Bank Starokyivsky.
Bank Starokyivsky Bank was founded in 1991.
Bank Starokyivsky ranked 148th among 173 banks operating in the country on July 1, 2014 in terms of total assets (UAH 413.806 million), according to the National Bank of Ukraine.
Fitch Ratings has upgraded Ukrainian integrated steel company Metinvest B.V.’s (Metinvest) Long-Term Local- and Foreign-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) and senior unsecured bonds to ‘BB-‘ from ‘B+’. The Outlook is Stable.
“The upgrade follows Ukraine’s Country Ceiling upgrade to ‘B’ from ‘B-‘on 6 September 2019. The IDR of Metinvest remains two notches above the Country Ceiling,” Fitch said in a report.
Fitch said that this happened due to its comfortable hard-currency (HC) external debt service coverage, and also its ‘BB’ category business and financial profiles.
In addition, S&P Global Ratings raised Metinvest’s issuer credit rating and its issue ratings on the existing notes to ‘B’ from ‘B-‘. The Outlook is Stable.
S&P said that the Ukrainian steel maker Metinvest has built a track record of balanced financial policy in the past 18 months, with relatively low gearing and positive free cash flow, supporting an adequate spending between growth and shareholder returns.
The two agencies also assigned preliminary ratings to senior unsecured notes of at least $500 million proposed by Metinvest to issue at once after purchase for cash up to $440 million notes in circulation: Fitch – ‘BB-(EXP),’ and S&P – ‘B.’
“The proposed senior unsecured notes of at least $500 million will smooth the maturity profile and strengthen liquidity,” S&P said.
Fitch expects Metinvest’s HC external debt service cover ratio to be comfortable at above our 1.5x threshold on a 18-month rolling basis, allowing the company’s IDR to remain two notches above Ukraine’s ‘B’ Country Ceiling . The top line of the ratio is mainly comprises substantial export EBITDA, aided by abroad EBITDA and cash. The bottom line of the ratio represents HC debt service, comprising principal repayments and interest payments, which are fairly smooth over 2019-2022. The company faces a $945 million notes maturity in 2023 but this would be addressed by the upcoming notes issue, which will improve HC external debt service coverage for 2023.
Fitch said that since the last rating action in April 2019 we have revised Metinvest’s full-year EBITDA down to slightly above $1.5 billion in both 2019 and 2020 and slightly under $1.5 billion in 2021 and 2022, reflecting sharper-than-previously expected price contraction across the steel value chain.
Fitch said that Metinvest is an important eastern European producer of metal products (8.8 million tonnes in 2018) and iron ore (27.3 million tonnes of concentrate and pellets in 2018), with around 300% self-sufficiency in iron ore but only 40%-45% in coking coal.
“The steel segment’s proximity to Black Sea and Azov Sea ports allows the company to benefit from both cheaper steel exports and seaborne coal imports logistics. The operations are also further integrated into downstream operations in Italy, Bulgaria and the UK. Partial integration into key raw materials and exposure to high value-added products help Metinvest mitigate but not avert steel market volatility,” Fitch said.
Fitch said that the conflict in eastern Ukraine continues to pose risks to day-to-day operations. Metinvest’s exposure to the risks of conflict escalation remains high relative to its EMEA peers, although Fitch admitted that most of its 1H19 EBITDA is generated by its mining assets located substantially farther from the conflict zone.
S&P expects that the company will maintain an adjusted funds from operations (FFO) to debt of 35%-40% in 2019 and 2020, well in the range commensurate with the current ‘B’ rating (20%-40%), with a positive discretionary cash flow (free cash flow after capex and dividends).
“We believe that the current market conditions will have a mixed impact on the company’s results in 2019,” S&P said.
“We expect Metinvest to benefit from the abnormal iron ore and pellet prices. Under our calculations, the EBITDA would need to fall to about $1.1 billion in 2020, compared with $1.5 billion-$1.7 billion in our base case, before witnessing a pressure on the rating,” S&P said.
Epicenter K, which has been developing agricultural business since 2016, has launched a seed plant in Khmelnytsky region. According to the group’s press release, the Cimbria seed line (Denmark) has been installed at the plant, which allows processing 80-100 tonnes of seeds per day in compliance with the technology of calibration, disinfection and packing.
“This year we’ve begun to work independently with seed material for our own needs. For the autumn sowing campaign, the enterprise prepared more than 2,000 tonnes of wheat seeds,” head of the Epicenter K agribusiness Vasyl Moroz said.
In addition, the group is currently negotiating with several foreign producers on the cultivation and processing of seed material for their needs. In the future, the company will switch to the cultivation of seed material of grain and leguminous crops with its subsequent refinement.
Epicenter K noted that for growing seeds, the agricultural holding has its own hybridization plots with irrigation equipment and rain machines.
The agricultural sector of the Epicenter K group of companies cultivates over 120,000 hectares of land in Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Cherkasy, and Kyiv regions. The group also includes 20 livestock farms and six elevators. Epicenter K plans to reach one million tonnes of grain storage capacity.
