The State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine has put up for auction Zarubinsky distillery (Ternopil region), which is the most expensive lot in the history of small-scale privatization – the starting price is UAH 245.4 million, the Fund reported on Facebook.
“This is an operating enterprise in the alcohol industry that produces not only ethyl alcohol but also bioethanol and even exports it,” the SPF explained.
According to the report, the distillery includes 58 real estate objects with a total area of 28,804 thousand square meters, including workshops, warehouses, industrial buildings, an administrative complex and other facilities. The privatization lot also includes 27 vehicles and special equipment.
According to the SPF, in 2022-2023, the company was profitable – UAH 1.1 million and UAH 1.6 million, respectively. In 2020-2021, it showed significant losses – UAH 72.7 million and UAH 14.2 million, respectively. As a result, Zarubinsky Distillery has accumulated significant accounts payable – UAH 374 million, of which UAH 4.4 million are debts to the budget and UAH 732 thousand to employees. These liabilities will be transferred to the future investor.
The auction is scheduled for October 2.
According to the Fund, distilleries are among the most popular small-scale privatization assets. Since September 2022, the SPF has sold 14 distilleries and raised UAH 965 million to the state budget, with the average price of each property at auction tripling.
T.B.Fruit group of companies, the largest fruit and berry processor in Ukraine, is considering the possibility of building its own factory for the production of industrial alcohol in Lviv region, founder of T.B.Fruit Taras Barschovsky has said.
“We are talking about industrial alcohol from wastewater that goes to wastewater treatment plants for production of pectin,” he told Interfax-Ukraine.
Barschovsky specified that investment in the plant could be about $800,000.
T.B.Fruit is a vertically integrated international group of companies with a closed production cycle (growing raw materials, processing, transportation).
The total capacity of T.B.Fruit processing plants is 1.2 million tonnes of concentrated juice per year.
T.B.Fruit in 2019 occupied 10% of the world juice market. With the launch of a plant in Poland in August 2020, the figure could reach 12-14%.
