KYIV. March 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) that took away a fleet of 2,400 freight wagons under the collateral agreement in court from Interleaseinvest could sell it later, Director of the EBRD Corporate Recovery Department Kamen Zahariev has said.
He said wagons on the bank’s balance sheet are for some period of time. The bank is not the natural operator of the wagons. Usually assets used as collateral are transferred to someone’s management or in some period of time the assets are sold, he said. The bank would stick to the same strategy in this situation, Zahariev said.
He said that strategic decisions that would positively influence the private wagon operators market could be made.
The EBRD would look for a better decision for Ukraine, he said. There is a large interest to these wagons. The bank receives many proposals from operators and investors in the sector. It is too early to speak about the decision, but anyway this will be a transparent process that the bank would present, he said.
Commenting on the story how the bank had received these wagons, the EBRD representative said that it showed in what ‘climate’ non-performing loans (NPL) are returned in Ukraine. This is not only EBRD’s loans. One should not forget about billions of U.S. dollars of NPL on the balance sheet of the Deposit Guarantee Fund and the on balance sheets of many Ukrainian commercial banks. They would have to return them somehow, Zahariev said.
He said that this story also shows that the company with liquid collateral assets and large revenue becomes a target for illegal seizers. There is a blur line between business and politics, he said. The loan issued to a private company at first turned out to be a loan issued to the minister, and the fall of the minister resulted in the collapse of his company, he said.
Zahariev said that the story with the return of collateral showed the weakness of the judicial system in Ukraine. The bank managed to protect its rights. It has ownership documents to the wagons, but it took much time to do this, he said. There were over 60 ineffective hearings in courts of Kyiv and Dnipro. There were cases when on the same day in one court two judges made absolutely opposite decisions. There were attempts to press on people, he said.
EBRD Country Director in Ukraine Sevki Acuner said that this was an interesting case that shows that investment climate in Ukraine is improving, as it is important for other financial institutions and investors to have confidence that if something goes wrong, their rights under the contracts will be observed and protected.
KYIV. March 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kyivkhlib, the largest producer of bread and bakery goods in Kyiv, in 2016 received UAH 19.48 million of net profit against a net loss of UAH 30.24 million in 2015.
According to the company’s announcement of an annual shareholders’ meeting scheduled for April 28, its assets last year amounted to UAH 640.9 million against UAH 712.55 million for the previous year.
Total debtor indebtedness over the year increased by 1.6 times, to UAH 339.4 million.
Undistributed profit by the end of the year was UAH 77.3 million.
PJSC Kyivkhlib was established in 1996 through the reorganization of state enterprise Kyivkhlibprom. It is the largest producer of bread and bakery goods in Kyiv. The company includes nine production sites in the capital and Kyiv region.
KYIV. March 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – DTEK intends to invest in construction of solar power plants, DTEK CEO Maksym Timchenko has said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
He said that the pilot project will be construction of a 10 MW solar power plant in Kherson region.
“The project is small, for 10 MW, but we want to try. I think that we would expand this pilot project if there were financing. This is our investment in the future, new generation,” he said.
Timchenko said that DTEK also intends to expand its portfolio of wind generation.
“Today, despite the current situation, we are in the active phase of talks with General Electric on building a new 200 MW plant – Prymorska wind farm… If we were able to form a pool of banks which would not be afraid of investing in Ukraine and come to an arrangement with GE, the development of wind generation would accelerate,” he said.
He said that the company is mulling construction of up to 1 GW of green generation facilities in coming five years.
As reported, in 2011, DTEK started building Botiyeve wind farm in Zaporizhia region and in October 2012 the first phase was launched. At present, the installed capacity of the farm is 200 MW. The share of DTEK of the Ukrainian renewable energy market in 2015 was 13%.
KYIV. March 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market of Ukraine intends to improve the mechanism for allowing securities of foreign issuers to enter the Ukrainian stock market, the regulator has said in a press release.
Draft amendments to the resolution on the access of securities of foreign issuers to the Ukrainian stock market were approved by commission members on March 23, 2017.
According to the draft amendments, securities of foreign issuers which registered the issue of the securities or the offering memorandum at one of the foreign stock exchanges approved by the national commission can enter the Ukrainian stock market; or if the issue of the securities has the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) and the National Depository of Ukraine (NDU) permitted to register the securities on the NDU correspondent account opened in a foreign depository institution.
The decision to permit the securities to enter the market is made by the commission under an application from the foreign issuer or NDU representing the interests of the owner of the securities.
According to the document, the applicants are to submit the application, the written confirmation from NDU that the securities can be registered on the correspondent account and the documents confirming the powers of a representative of the issuer.
The commission also approved the amendments to the list of foreign stock exchanges approved by the commission. The new list includes the network of stock exchanges, including NASDAQ OMX Group, New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), stock exchanges of EU member countries, London Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing.
KYIV. March 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman believes that GUAM (Georgia-Ukraine-Azerbaijan-Moldova) needs to implement a program of cooperation with Japan and prepare a program of cooperation with the U.S.
“It is important to prepare the continuation of the GUAM-U.S. cooperation framework program, and I fully support the development of contacts with the Visegrad Four (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic),” he said during a meeting with the heads of governments of GUAM member countries in Kyiv on Monday.
According to the prime minister of Ukraine, GUAM also needs to work on the implementation of the framework program for cooperation with Japan, which was signed in 2015.
In addition, Groysman considers GUAM cooperation with the Baltic and Eastern European countries promising.
