The AM Best rating agency has revised its outlook for the global reinsurance industry sector from stable to positive, citing expectations of high reinsurer profitability, according to the AM Best website.
Despite the slowdown in reinsurance rate growth, underwriting discipline remains strong and profitability remains high enough to cover higher loss activity, as evidenced by the recently published Best’s Segment Outlook.
At the same time, it is emphasized that AM Best’s outlook for the global reinsurance market is positive for the first time in several years.
“Demand for insurance coverage remains strong due to increasing activity in natural catastrophe losses and general economic uncertainty,” said Carlos Wong-Fupui, senior director of AM Best. “We have also taken into account expectations of a slower decline in interest rates than originally anticipated, which is likely to support strong earnings in the short term.”
It is also noted that the reinsurance portfolios of the largest players continue to expand due to a combination of higher reinsurance rates and increased demand. Although the loss ratios in the first quarter of 2024 were affected by large losses, in particular the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the insurance margin and annual return on capital remain high.
AM Best is a global credit rating agency, news publisher and data analytics provider specializing in the insurance industry. Headquartered in the United States, the company does business in more than 100 countries and has regional offices in London, Amsterdam, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico City.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed with Kenyan President William Ruto the creation of hubs for Ukrainian grain in African ports.
“Held a meeting with the President of Kenya William Ruto. Thank you for participation in the Peace Summit and a principled position of support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” – wrote Zelensky in his Telegram channel on Sunday night.
The Ukrainian head of state noted that at the meeting they discussed food security issues, which are very important for both countries, the development of Ukrainian-Kenyan relations and projects in the field of agricultural exports.
In addition, the parties considered the possible participation of Kenya in the creation of hubs for Ukrainian grain in African ports.
AFRICA, hubs, President of Kenya, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE, UKRAINIAN GRAIN
The leading wholesale companies earned more than UAH 535 billion in 2023, according to the Opendatabot Index. The rating includes companies that trade in tobacco products, agricultural products, metal, pharmaceuticals, and food. Such giants as Philip Morris Sales and Distribution, Rinat Akhmetov’s DTEK Trading and West Petrol Market dropped out of the ranking.
The total revenue of the top 10 wholesale companies amounted to UAH 535.34 billion in 2023. Earnings of the top 10 businesses in the Opendatabot Index increased by 17% compared to last year’s leaders.
For the third year in a row, Kernel Trade has been at the top of the ranking despite a 9% decrease in revenue to UAH 62.06 billion. This company, a part of Andriy Verevsky’s Kernel Group, is engaged in the wholesale of grain and sunflower oil. At the same time, the company’s net profit decreased by 15% to UAH 4.37 billion.
It is worth noting that at the end of April this year, the company changed its business line in the registers from wholesale trade to oil production.
Okko Express, a newcomer to the market established in September 2022, moved up to second place. Its revenue in 2023 amounted to UAH 61.89 billion, and its net profit reached UAH 1.15 billion. This fuel trading company ousted another UIG Group company, Okko Business Partner, from its position.
Tedis Ukraine, a member of the Kaufman family group, is in third place. Its revenue decreased by 5% to UAH 61.53 billion, and the company suffered a loss of UAH 539 million. The company is engaged in the wholesale trade of tobacco products.
The fourth place went to Badm, a company specializing in the wholesale of pharmaceuticals owned by Oleksandr Dytiatkovsky and Oleksandr Sukhodolsky. The company increased its revenue by 29% to UAH 56.73 billion, and its profit doubled to UAH 3.89 billion in 2023.
Another pharmaceutical company, Optima Pharm, held the fifth place in the ranking with revenue of UAH 56.73 billion. This is 28% more than in 2022. The owner of the company, which managed to increase its profits by 1.7 times last year, is Andriy Gubsky.
Yuriy Kosyuk’s MHP moved from 4th to 6th place in the Index, despite a 12% increase in revenue to UAH 50.65 billion. However, the company suffered a loss of UAH 1 billion in 2023.
Among the new entrants to the Opendatabot 2024 Index is DL Solution, established in August 2022 and owned by Israeli citizen Ari Weber. The company’s main activity is the wholesale of tobacco products. The company was ranked 7th with revenues of UAH 50.65 billion and net profit of UAH 61.36 million.
VOG Resource, a part of the Continuum group of Sergey Lagur and Stepan Ivakhiv, was ranked eighth, trading in fuel. The company increased its revenue by 30% to UAH 50.13 billion and showed the highest increase in net profit among competitors – 7 times to UAH 275 million.
Fozzy Commerce showed the largest revenue growth, rising to 9th place, increasing its revenue 7 times to UAH 41.85 billion. At the same time, the company’s net profit decreased by 10 times compared to the previous year. The company is part of Vladimir Kostelman’s Fozzy Group.
Rinat Akhmetov’s Metinvest-SMC closes the rating with a revenue of UAH 40.71 billion, up 36% from the first year of full-scale operations. Last year, the company, which wholesales metal and steel structures, made a profit of UAH 881.55 million, up almost a third from 2022.
Who dropped out of the ranking?
Three companies engaged in fuel wholesale dropped out of the top 10 list: Okko Business Partner, DTEK Trading, and West Petroleum Market. Philip Morris Sales and Distribution also left the ranking, despite a 36% increase in revenue in 2023.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/index-wholesale-trade-2024
Water is already being supplied from Zaporizhzhia to the pumping and filtering station in Marhanets (the first branch), where it is purified and distributed to consumers – the Marhanets, Myrivska, Shyrokivska, and Tomakivska communities. The second branch will supply water to Nikopol, Pokrovske and Chervonohryhorivka (Dnipropetrovska oblast), said Maksym Shkil, owner of Autostrada.
Autostrada completed the construction of the water pipeline and its preparation for launch in February. All this time, they had to wait for the identification of the facility’s balance sheet holder and for a constant voltage supply.
The modern water supply system is fully automated and computerized, and is now fully powered by a constant power supply. A centralized control room for the entire water supply system has been set up, based on modern automation equipment and data transmission systems. This minimizes the involvement of operational staff and increases the reliability and efficiency of the water supply system.
Autostrada built the main water supply system from scratch in 7 months – from design to implementation. This is a record-breaking time. It takes up to a year and a half to develop projects of this level. We didn’t have this time, given the humanitarian catastrophe in which the region found itself due to the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
At the same time, we were designing, obtaining technical specifications, approvals and permits, and building the project – designers, surveyors, and builders worked in parallel and in a coordinated manner – directly at the site, 24/7!
These were extremely difficult tasks, but we solved them!
The length of the network is 77.9 km. The design capacity of the water supply system is 150,000 m3 of water per day. It was important to ensure water intake from the Dnipro, the largest Ukrainian river with a constant inflow of living water. Since access to the Dnipro riverbed is limited in many areas due to constant enemy shelling, it was decided to take water from Zaporizhzhia, a large industrial city with a difficult terrain. The designers were actually drawing the routes based on maps, as the survey would have taken a lot of time. And only after the route was laid did they refine it with geodesy. Pipes were laid where it was impossible to do so in an open way, and under roads, railways and rivers, punctures were made using horizontal drilling – a drilling rig drills a well into which a steel pipe casing is pulled, and then a fiberglass pipe is pulled into the casing.
The facility has built:
– 6 water pumping stations. Each pumping station is equipped with four powerful pumping units (from 315 kW to 800 kW). The volume of water that can be pumped by the pumps is up to 3300 m3 per hour,
– 46 “Plunger” chambers (for bleeding air in the network),
– 47 “Outlet” chambers (for draining water from the system),
16 switching chambers (for switching the water flow in the system between the pipeline lines),
– 3 meter chambers,
– 1 distribution chamber (for distributing water flow between networks – from 800mm to 500mm/700mm).
To ensure power supply to the water supply system, a total of 26 kilometers of main and backup power supply lines of 6kV and 35kV networks were constructed, and transformer substations with a voltage of 6/0.4 kV and 35/0.4 kW were equipped at each water supply system.
To ensure uninterrupted power supply, 2 diesel generators with a capacity of up to 1 MW were installed at each substation as an alternative (backup) power source.
Fiberglass pipes made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester were used in the construction of the water supply system. Such pipes can withstand pressures of up to 26 atmospheres, are lightweight and durable, and are more resistant to high temperatures and chemicals.
To protect the water supply system from shelling, almost the entire system of main pipelines and pumping stations was hidden underground.
Upon completion of the work, the roads used by the construction equipment were repaired, the territories were landscaped and planted.
In the absence of timely financing, the construction was carried out using the company’s credit and working capital. Despite the water pipeline’s one hundred percent completion in February, the state’s debt to Autostrada for this facility alone is UAH 1.5 billion.
In January-May this year, Ukraine increased imports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 3 times compared to the same period last year – up to 212,768 thousand tons.
According to the statistics released by the State Customs Service on Thursday, coke imports in monetary terms increased 2.16 times to $77.2 million over the period.
Imports were mainly from Poland (87.71% of supplies in monetary terms), China (4.72%) and Hungary (4.38%).
In the first five months of the year, the country exported 340 tons of coke worth $81 thousand to Moldova (98.77%) and Latvia (1.23%), while in January and March 2024, there were no exports.
As reported, in 2023, Ukraine reduced imports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 8.5% compared to 2022 – to 328.697 thousand tons, while imports in monetary terms decreased by 25.8% to $129.472 million.
In 2023, Ukraine exported 3,383 thousand tons of coke, down 12.3% compared to 2022. In monetary terms, it decreased by 22.2% to $787 thousand.
Exports were carried out to Moldova (100% of supplies in monetary terms), while imports were mainly from Poland (88.47%), Colombia (7.72%) and the Czech Republic (3.15%).
In 2022, Ukraine decreased exports of coke and semi-coke in physical terms by 98% compared to the previous year to 3,856 thousand tons, and in monetary terms by 97.6% to $1,011 million. The main exports were made to Hungary (42.63% of supplies in monetary terms), Georgia (37.69%) and Turkey (17.41%).
In 2022, Ukraine imported 359.192 thousand tons of coke and semi-coke, which is 54.5% less than in 2021. In monetary terms, imports decreased by 50.3% to $174.499 million. Imports were mainly from the Russian Federation (43.43% of supplies in monetary terms, before the war), Poland (30.07%) and the Czech Republic (13.15%).
As a result of the war, a number of mines and coke plants are located in the territories temporarily not controlled by Ukraine.
