Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is ready to come to Latin America to meet with the leaders of states in the region.
“It is very difficult for me to do this during the war. But I am ready. I asked: let’s make my meeting with the leaders of your continent. I’m ready to fly in, I want to communicate with them. Your people, your society trusts its leaders. And if I talk to you, if I stay with you, we will see in detail who Putin is and that he is not so great,” he said in an interview with Latin American media published by the Ukrainian presidential office on Saturday.
“If you don’t have the opportunity to come to us, that’s okay, I don’t have a crown, and I’m a very simple man, you’ll have me. Let’s talk our steps forward together,” the president said
In his view, if these countries are not willing to provide weapons to Ukraine, they could support “the Formula of Peace, support people, humanitarianly.”
NovaPay, a financial company from Nova Posta Group, has entered the Moldovan market and became the first financial service in that country to introduce the cash-on-delivery feature, the company’s press office said Friday.
“NovaPay is the first domestic fintech company to begin its global expansion, and Moldova was the first international development market for us,” said company CEO Andrei Krivoshapko.
According to him, NovaPay will provide Moldovan enterprises and private clients with financial services, which have not been available on the market before, and will also accompany Novaya Posta’s logistics operations.
Krivoshapko added that after receiving the extended license, the next stage will be opening accounts and issuing cards to them, credit products, including “Parcel to Credit”.
It is worth mentioning that citizens of Moldova may receive the cash on delivery service without commission at 19 branches of Nova Poshta in Chisinau, Comrat, Balti, Cahul, Edinet and in other localities – via courier.
The company said that among next plans of NovaPay in Moldova are domestic and international transfers, acquiring and instant domestic and cross-border transfers for business and factoring.
A day earlier, in an interview with Forbes Ukraine, NovaPay announced plans to open offices in every country where Nova Post’s parent company will be located. Priority markets are Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria, where there are more Ukrainians. It was pointed out that for the expansion so far EUR2 million of own investments are foreseen.
“We want to financially “connect” 10 million internally displaced Ukrainians with their families. By launching the application, we plan to attract 30-40% of “Nova Posta” customers to use it,” Krivoshapko told “Forbes Ukraine”.
According to him, in July NovaPay plans to present a beta version of the mobile application, which is currently 70% ready, and its full-scale launch is scheduled for September.
As it was reported, the National Bank of Ukraine has recognized NovaPay as an important payment system with a market share of 45% at the end of 2022.
Earlier NovaPay applied for an Electronic Money institution license in Europe.
NovaPay is a part of Nova Posta Group and provides it with online and offline payment services.
According to the website of the National Bank, in 2022, NovaPay increased revenues by 32.5% to 5 billion 188.92 million UAH and net profit by 46.1% to 2 billion 360.62 million UAH.
Due to the implementation of housing programs administered by the State Fund of Youth Housing Development (Gosmolodzhytlo), 189 Ukrainian families were provided with their own houses in January-May 2023, the total amount of loans issued for this amounted to 282.7 mln UAH, as stated by the press service of the agency
As specified a member of the Fund administration, the head of the credit committee of the institution Elvira Levchenko, in May there were concluded 33 contracts to the amount of 41,6 mln.
In general at the expense of authorized capital of the fund during five months of 2023 104 agreements to the amount of 138.2 mln UAH were signed (including 23 agreements in May to the amount of 27.1 mln UAH); 10 agreements to the amount of 13 mln UAH were concluded within the framework of local housing programs (6 agreements in May to the amount of 7.9 mln UAH).
In addition, in January-May 75 contracts were issued for 131.5 million UAH (including four contracts in May for 6.6 million UAH) under the program of preferential mortgage lending for internally displaced persons at the expense of the grant provided by the KfW.
Elvira Levchenko clarified that the State Mortgage Fund has developed internal regulations, which regulate the contractual relations with the borrowers-debtors, whose property is damaged or located in the war zone or temporarily occupied territories.
According to her, 296 borrowers owed 36.3 thousand UAH on loans issued within the framework of the programs of the State Committee for Military and Paramilitary Affairs due to the circumstances associated with the armed aggression of Russia. Of these, nine borrowers received a deferral/suspension of loan payments due to damage or complete destruction of their homes by the occupants. 266 borrowers had their payments suspended due to the location of their property purchased with a mortgage loan in the territories temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation or where military operations are under way.
Developed by the State Property Committee and the mechanism of restructuring and loan for those borrowers whose property is not damaged, but their income does not allow to fulfill their obligations under the housing loans.
According to the release, now the proposal to restructure the borrowers took advantage of the 21 loans, which have accumulated a total of more than 2 million UAH overdue debts since the beginning of the aggression. Based on financial capabilities and selected parameters of restructuring, these citizens resumed loan repayment according to new payment schedules.
The international vertically integrated pipe and wheel company Interpipe received $204.441 million of net profit in 2022, which is 2.2 times more than the previous year ($91.316 million).
According to the company’s annual report, last year’s pretax profit amounted to $220.579 million compared to $110.907 million in 2021.
The revenue in 2022 decreased by 13.4% – to $981.330 million from $1 billion 132.9 million a year earlier.
At the same time, Interpipe increased its free cash flow from $109.627 mln to $153.777 mln during the year.
As previously reported, due to the war, Interpipe’s EBITDA in 2022 decreased by 11% YoY to $204 mln. Steel output in 2022 decreased 39% to 595 thousand tons, pipes – 36%, to 393 thousand tons, railroad products – 51%, to 84 thousand tons.
Sales of products in the reporting period decreased by 37%, to 524 thousand tons, including pipes – by 36%, to 384 thousand tons, railway products – by 50%, to 87 thousand tons. Revenue from sales decreased by 13% to $981 mn, net leverage remained at a strong and stable level of 1.1x.
It was noted, however, that 2022 was an extremely difficult year for the company. After a large-scale invasion by Russian troops at the end of February, Interpipe’s management was forced to halt all production facilities for employee safety reasons. It was only in April and May that production was gradually resumed at all enterprises of the group.
However, it was not possible to reach the pre-war production level because Interpipe had to rearrange the logistics chain of shipping finished products through the ports of the European Union due to the blockade of the Black Sea ports, Russian bombing of the transport infrastructure and shortage of fuel. This led to a 2.5-3.5-fold increase in transportation costs, depending on the route.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, Russia began regularly attacking Ukraine’s power infrastructure, which led to several blackouts at the national and regional levels. As a result of the resulting power shortages in the country, strict limits were imposed on power consumption by industrial consumers, including Interpipe’s enterprises, which had a negative impact on production.
CEO of Interpipe Andrei Korotkov noted that in the last year’s very difficult conditions, the company retained its workforce and industrial assets.
“Unfortunately, we have not managed to return to the pre-war level of finished product production. At the same time we expect to somewhat improve production results in 2023, including due to the extension of the cancellation of all quotas and duties on Ukrainian goods by the USA and the EU. In addition, Interpipe remains a conscientious and reliable partner to its creditors and investors. The company continues to service and repay its loan obligations in full since the beginning of the full-scale invasion,” the CEO explained.
“Interpipe is a Ukrainian industrial company producing seamless pipes and railroad wheels. The company supplies its products to over 80 countries all over the world through a network of sales offices located in key markets in the Middle East, North America, and Europe. In 2022, the company sold 384 thnd mt of tubes and 87 thnd mt of railroad products. The company sells its railroad products under the KLW brand.
Interpipe has 10 000 employees. In 2022 the company transferred 2.8 billion hryvnias to the budgets of all levels.
The company has five industrial assets: “Interpipe Nizhnedniprovsk Tube Rolling Plant (NTZ)”, “Interpipe Novomoskovsk Tube Plant (NMTZ)”, “Interpipe Niko-Tube”, “Dnepropetrovsk Vtormet” and the electric steelmaking complex “Dneprostal” under the “Interpipe Steel” brand.
The ultimate owner of Interpipe Limited is Ukrainian businessman Viktor Pinchuk and his family members.
PJSC “Zaporozhkoks”, one of the largest Ukrainian producers of coke products and being a part of “Metinvest” group, in January-May this year increased the production of blast-furnace coke by 37.9% in comparison with the same period last year – up to 355.7 thousand tons from 258 thousand tons.
According to the company data, in May-2023 it produced 73.1 thousand tons of blast-furnace coke, compared to 68 thousand tons in May-2022 (7.5% increase).
As it was reported Zaporizhkoks in January-April 2023 increased blast furnace coke output by 48.7% y-o-y, to 282.6 thousand tons from 190 thousand tons. In April-2023 71.3 thousand tons of blast-furnace coke was produced, compared to 52.7 thousand tons in April-2022 (35.4% increase).
“Zaporizhkoks” in 2022 reduced the production of blast-furnace coke by 11.9% compared to 2021 – to 737.4 thousand tons, including 70.8 coke produced in December.
“Zaporizhkoks” produces about 10% of coke produced in Ukraine, owns a full technological cycle of processing of coke products. It also produces coke gas and pitch coke.
“Metinvest is a vertically integrated mining group of companies. Its major shareholders are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%) that jointly manage the company.
Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of Metinvest group.
Agroholding KSG Agro because of the full-scale war launched by Russia ended 2022 with a net loss of $1.68 million compared to $17.71 million net profit in 2021, its EBITDA decreased 5.5 times to $1.79 million, the company said in its annual report on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
“Disruption of traditional logistics, limitation of exports by the grain corridor, growth of personnel costs, security and energy autonomy – to list the negative factors of the new realities can be long. So, of course, the results of 2022 can not be compared with the previous year, which was a record result in terms of harvest, “- commented Sergey Kasyanov, the head of the Board of Directors and the majority shareholder of the agricultural holding.
According to the report, its revenue last year decreased 47.3% – to $16.2 million, gross profit – 3.3 times, to $3.18 million and operating profit – 18.8 times, to $0.44 million.
It is also specified that exchange losses increased 4.6 times to $2.63 million, net debt increased only 1.9% to $47.46 million and free cash at the end of the year was $0.27 million.
Last December, the inactive subsidiary Hlebna League LLC was also disposed of, and the loss on its disposal was $10.27 million.
“Despite the formal losses, our 2022 agroholding provided stable operations. Due to the vertical integration of building the business we did not increase the credit load, expanded the share of pork sales, providing 80% in the native Dnepropetrovsk region and entering the markets of Zaporozhye and Kharkov, where pork producers as a result of Russian aggression curtailed their activities,” – said Kasyanov.
“The Board of Directors is currently working on a new development strategy to expand the group’s operations in the European Union with the clear goal of having most of the group’s assets and revenues in the EU within the next 3-5 years,” the report said again.
It is pointed out that this can be achieved through a series of mergers and acquisitions, as well as equity and debt financing, including additional share issues.
“The board of directors has no plans to sell the group’s existing assets in Ukraine. On the contrary, the focus of the new strategy is on expansion and investment, thereby reducing the potential risks of investing in Ukraine alone and mitigating the negative impact on the group’s business of the current macroeconomic situation in Ukraine,” the document states.
According to it, the total number of pigs and piglets of agrarian group reduced only by 3.3% last year – to 42.26 thousand, while during the year it came to 106.04 thousand against 108.16 thousand a year earlier.
The report indicates that crop revenue fell more than fourfold to $4.5 million from $8.3 million.
According to the document, in December 2022, KSG Agro agreed with its main bank lender TAScombank on new loan terms from the first quarter of 2023, which better reflect the group’s wartime financing needs. According to them, the established total credit limit on TAScombank loans remains at 450 million UAH, the interest rates on tranches in UAH are 25% per annum and provide for partial compensation of the rate on state programs, and the interest rates on tranches in USD and euro are set at 9% per annum.
Under the new terms, the main part of the principal must be paid in December 2025, while under the previous conditions by the end of 2023 should already have been paid $ 9.57 million.
It is specified that in the first quarter of 2023, the company repaid a total of $7.08 million of the existing TAScombank loans and received new tranches under the new terms totaling $6.03 million.
In addition, the $15.5 million loan to Kasyanov’s OLBIS Investments S.A., which owns 57.96 percent of KSG Agro, has been extended through 2036, the report said.
“Based on management’s five-year financial projections, the group is expected to generate sufficient profits in the future to ensure that total capital will increase to a positive value in the long term. In addition, when Russia’s war in Ukraine eventually ends and the economy begins to recover, the fair value of the group’s assets is also expected to increase naturally. Until then, the group is dependent on continued external financing,” the paper said.
KSG Agro, a vertically integrated holding company, is engaged in pig breeding as well as the production, storage, processing and sale of grain and oilseeds. Its land bank is about 21 thousand hectares in Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions.
According to Agroholding, it is one of the top-5 pork producers in Ukraine.
