National Energy Company Ukrenergo has signed a contract with Lalive S.A. (Switzerland) to present the interests of the company in a case on compensation of losses due to annexation of Crimea by Russia. According to a company report in the ProZorro e-procurement system, the contract on the provision of legal services worth EUR 1.537 million (or UAH 49.9 million without VAT) was signed on February 6, 2019.
Covington & Burling, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan UK also took part in the tender.
Lalive will provide Ukrenergo with the services of preparing and sending a notice of arbitration to the dispute, determining the nomination of arbitrators and shaping the composition of international arbitration, drafting a claim and applying to arbitration, representing the interests of the company in arbitration tribunal and obtaining the award.
As reported, Lalive represented the interests of the following companies in disputes against the Russian Federation regarding lost investments: Ukrnafta, Stabil, and Yukos Capital.
In April 2018 Ukrenergo officially notified the Russian Federation about the start of an investment dispute over the company’s assets seized in Crimea. According to estimates by Ukrenergo, only the cost of the company’s power grids in the peninsula is about $1 billion.
Ukrenergo operates trunk and interstate transmission lines, as well as centralized dispatching of the country’s integrated power grids. It is a state-owned enterprise, which was managed by Ukraine’s Energy and Coal Industry Ministry.
JSC Kyiv River Port plans to build a class A logistic complex with a cargo area and a terminal for a cement base, the port has reported on its website. In addition, the port plans to focus on the development of rail and container traffic; as well as actively develop trade relations and transportation with Belarus.
The logistics complex with a cargo area will occupy an area of 10,000 square meters, of which 2,000 square meters will be reserved for office space.
The railway infrastructure is planned to be used, first of all, for work with sand, crushed stone, metal and cement.
In addition, the company said that, since 2014, the company has provided over UAH 40 million for the development of infrastructure.
“A customs complex with an international checkpoint was built, office buildings, workshops and warehouses were reconstructed and repaired, the territory was cleared of garbage and modern security equipment was installed. The railway line was fully restored and weight complexes were installed,” the company said.
The ships also installed new navigation equipment and modern security equipment, an icebreaking tug and a floating crane were purchased.
“Today, the Kyiv River Port is successfully developing in eight directions, starting with cargo handling services and ending with passenger transportation,” the company said.
One troy ounce=31.10 grams
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has permitted Cypriot T.A.S. Overseas Investments Limited, the key shareholder of which is ex-Deputy Prime Minister Sergiy Tigipko, to acquire pharmacy business of the Kosmo retail chain.
According to the report, the acquisition would grant over 50% of the votes in the management body of the company to Tigipko.
As reported, at the end of 2018, the TAS pharmacy chain (TAS Pharma LLC), part of the TAS Group, announced its plans to buy 60 pharmacies in the near future, boosting the number of pharmacies to 153 by February 2019. It was about three transactions for the purchase of pharmaceutical networks consisting of 26 and 34 pharmacies.
TAS Group was founded in 1998. It has assets in financial and industrial sectors, agriculture, real estate, pharmaceuticals and venture projects. The founder and main shareholder of the group is Sergiy Tigipko.
Currently the TAS chain has 114 pharmacies, including 71 located in Kyiv.
The pharmacy business of the Kosmo retail chain, which is under control of SigmaBleyzer investment fund, has 28 pharmacies in Kyiv city and region.
The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) counts on continuation of cooperation of Ukraine with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the expiration of the currency Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), according to an inflation report for January 2019 posted on the website of the central bank.
The document, in particular, has the key assumptions for the macroeconomic forecast of the NBU for 2019-2021, including payments to the public sector from donors in 2019-2021 ($6.5 billion from the IMF, $1.6 billion each from the EU and the World Bank), along with the placement of government external loan bonds for $8.5 billion, will allow refinancing most of the payments on external obligations.
As reported, the IMF Executive Board, following a meeting on December 19, 2018, approved a new program of cooperation with Ukraine under the stand-by arrangement. The amount of the 14-month program is equivalent to SDR 2.8 billion, or about $3.9 billion. Some SDR 1 billion (about $1.4 billion) was provided immediately, while the remaining funds will be provided based on the results of the program reviews in May and September 2019. The NBU thus plans to raise some $4 billion from the IMF in 2020-2021.
In addition, at the end of January 2019, the NBU said that it had laid out macroeconomic forecasts for the country to place eurobonds worth $2 billion in 2019. Thus, the National Bank expects an increase in sovereign eurobonds in subsequent years to more than $3 billion.
As reported, Ukraine in October 2018 placed two tranches of eurobonds: $750 million five-year bonds and $1.25 billion 10-year bonds.
The yield on the five-year bonds was 9% per annum, and for the 10-year bonds it is 9.75%.
BNP Paribas, Citi, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan acted as organizers of the issue.
