As of the second quarter of 2019, the largest investors in Ukrainian equity securities were the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD, the United Kingdom) with $109.6 million, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), the Norwegian central bank, with $83.5 million and Cascade Investment of former MP Vitaliy Khomutynnik with $69.7 million, which invested only in Ukraine among EBRD regions of operation.
According to the March 2020 report Investor Base of Securities Markets in EBRD Regions made in collaboration with HIS Markit and released on the EBRD’s website, Kairos Investment Management (Great Britain) with $57.2 million and Kairos Partners (Italy) with $53 million also entered the top five major investors in Ukrainian securities by the middle of 2019.
The bank said that in general, in the region of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus (EEC) EBRD invested $2.05 billion in securities, NBIM invested $7.27 billion, Kairos Investment Management and Kairos Partners invested $365.5 million and $130.8 million, respectively, while Cascade Investment in the region invests only in Ukrainian companies.
The leading investors in Ukraine were also PTE PZU (Poland) with $49.4 million ($4.71 billion in EBRD regions), Kopernik Global Investors (the United States) with $39.9 million ($440.1 million), Aviva Santander (Poland) with $38.5 million ($6.16 billion), Templeton Asset Management Singapore (Singapore) with $35.2 million ($356.6 million) and Alfred Berg Asset Management (Sweden) with $31.1 million ($1.93 billion), according to the report.
“Ukraine’s top shareholders were all low- and medium-turnover investors, with just $19.4 million invested by high-and very-high turnover firms. Ukraine boasted the highest percentage of low-turnover firms in the EEC region, apart from Armenia and Belarus, which each had just one disclosed holder,” the bank said in the document.
In general, according to the report, investment in equity securities of Ukrainian companies for five years increased by 22.8% and for two years by 10.1%, to $938.3 million, although their number decreased from 126 to 123. Total capitalization of Ukrainian companies was estimated at $4.3 billion.
According to it, strategic investments in Ukraine in the second quarter of 2019 slightly outbalanced institutional ones, for 41.5% compared to 36.7%, respectively.
Passive investments remain extremely insignificant with amount of $32.4 million, having decreased by $2.5 million over two years, while active investments have grown by 10.8% during that period.
In the total volume of investments in the government, the share of European investors was 74.1%, North African was 20.9%. In addition, Asia accounted for 5% of institutional investments, most of which belonged to Templeton Asset Management.
“In Ukraine, we would invest mainly through Poland and London, where the biggest companies are listed. I would rate the ease of trading in Ukraine a 3. The ease of trading in Slovenia is a 3. The company we are invested in there is listed in London. The ease of trading in Turkey is a 4 and Cyprus also a 4. The market in Poland is very easy to access, I would rate ease of trading a 5,” a representative of the European Mutual Fund (assets under management are more than $50 billion) said in the report.
According to a representative of the North American mutual fund with assets under management of more than $10 billion, the company is optimistic towards Ukraine, due to the political events taking place in it.
“We like to look for countries that are reforming and moving towards freer, more liberal economic policy making… Ukraine is one country where we are spending a lot of time given the political changes there,” the investor said in the report.
