Business news from Ukraine

UKRTELECOM INCREASES EBITDA BY 11% IN Q1, 2019

PJSC Ukrtelecom in January-March 2019 increased EBITDA by 11% compared to the same period in 2018, to UAH 427 million, director general of the operator Yuriy Kurmaz has said at a press conference in Kyiv.
According to him, EBITDA margin for this period increased by 2 percentage points, to 26%.
Net income for the reporting period rose by 3%, to UAH 1.665 billion.
Kurmaz added that income from telecommunication services in the first quarter of the current year decreased by 1.4% compared to the first quarter of 2018, to UAH 1.416 billion.
In January-March, the operator provided services to private subscribers for more than UAH 922 million, business users for UAH 348 million.
At the same time, Kurmaz refused to voice the net financial result for the first quarter.
“I think it is inappropriate to talk about net profit for the first quarter, given the fact that from January 1 of this year a number of financial reporting standards have changed significantly, significantly influencing net profit. At the same time, I’d like to note that in the first quarter we achieved substantial profit,” he said.

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VEGA TELECOMS OPERATOR SEES EBITDA RISE BY 43%

Vega, the largest Ukrainian telecoms operator, in January-September 2018 saw EBITDA rise by 43%, to UAH 127 million, the company’s net income amounted to UAH 469 million, which is 4% more than in the same period of 2017.
At the same time, the company did not provide information on the company’s net profit/loss for the first half of the year.
According to the operator’s press release, the positive dynamics of the company’s revenues is related to the growth in revenues from the provision of services by fiber-optic channels and from IP services. The revenue in the key business sector of the company is also constantly growing.
In the first nine months of this year, Vega invested UAH 60 million in the development of its own networks and modernization against UAH 66.8 million in the nine months of 2017.
The company also noted that the share of IP telephony clients (VoIP) in the B2B base of subscribers of telephony services increased by 21% compared to the same period last year.
At the same time, the average revenue per user (ARPU) for the above mentioned period rose by 18.4% due to the growing share of the business segment in the subscriber base and the increasing popularity of high yield products.
The volume of taxes and fees the company paid to the budgets of various levels in January-September amounted to UAH 104 million, which is 20% more than last year.

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MINING AND METAL GROUP METINVEST’S EBITDA IS $224 MLN IN MAY

Revenue of Metinvest B.V. (the Netherlands), the parent company of the Metinvest mining and metal group, fell by 6.4% in May 2018 or by $68 million compared with the previous month, to $998 million from $1.066 billion. According to a monthly report based on preliminary financial results, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in May totaled $224 million, which is 3% or $7 million more than in April ($231 million).
According to the report, adjusted EBITDA of the metallurgical division of the group in May 2018 totaled $133 million, including $17 million from participation in JVs, EBITDA of the mining division was $87 million, including $14 million from participation in JVs. Corporate overheads totaled $5 million.
Total revenue in May consisted of revenue of the metallurgical division in the amount of $875 million, the mining division – $262 million and eliminations were -$139 million. Total debt of the company in May fell by $229 million compared with April, to $2.977 billion. Cash and cash equivalents fell by $375 million, to $268 million. Net cash used in investing activities totaled $68 million and net cash used in financing activities were $200 million.

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LARGEST UKRAINIAN MOBILE OPERATOR KYIVSTAR HAS 8% RISE IN EBITDA IN Q2

The mobile communications operator Kyivstar in April-June 2018 saw an 11.4% rise in revenue year-over-year, to UAH 4.521 billion, the Veon international group (VimpelCom Ltd. before rebranding) has said in a quarterly report on Thursday. According to the report, over the period Kyivstar increased earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 8%, to UAH 2.49 billion, EBITDA margin fell by 1.7 percentage points (p.p.), to 55.1%. Revenue from mobile communications services in Q2 2018 came to UAH 4.2 billion, which is 11.4% more than a year ago.
The press service of Kyivstar reported that data consumption in April-June 2018 grew by 139% year-over-year, to 1.8 gigabytes per user on average. Voice service consumption remained stable: in Q2 2018 on average 580 minutes per user was recorded, which is 1.2% more than a year ago. The number of mobile Internet users over the period grew by 21% year-over-year, to 13.5 million, and the total number of active users totaled 26.5 million, which is 400,000 more than a year ago.
“The growth in the consumption of services, the increase in the number of users, the launch of new communication technologies are just a few qualitative changes that have positively affected our financial performance in the second quarter of 2018,” acting Kyivstar president Oleksandr Komarov said in a report. The minutes of use (MoU) increased by 1.2%, to 580 minutes, and ARPU (average revenue per user per month) of mobile communication increased by 9.6%, to UAH 52.
The revenues of the mobile operator from fixed-line services in the second quarter increased by 7.3% to UAH 297 million, including revenues from fixed-line Internet that increased by 8.5% to UAH 185 million, while the number of users increased by 6.5% %, to 0.858 million. ARPU for fixed-line Internet grew by 4.3%, to UAH 72.
Capital investments, with the exception of payment for licenses, for the reporting period amounted to UAH 927 million, which is 31.5% more than in the same period last year. At the end of the second quarter of 2018, the “3G Kyivstar” service was available in the territory where 74% of Ukrainians live. Kyivstar said that in the first half of the year its revenues increased by 10.8% compared to the same period in 2017, to UAH 8.785 billion, while EBITDA increased by 12%, to UAH 4.902 billion.
At the same time, revenues from mobile services for six months increased by 11.2% to UAH 8.149 billion, and from fixed-line telephony – by 3.6%, to UAH 593 million.
In the second quarter of 2018, Kyivstar transferred almost UAH 4 billion of taxes, fees and payments for licenses to the Ukrainian budget, and for the first half of the year the amount of all payments to the national budget reached UAH 6.8 billion. Kyivstar is the largest Ukrainian mobile communications operator.

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KERNEL PLANS TO REACH $495 MLN EBITDA BY 2021

Kernel, one of the largest Ukrainian agrarian groups, intends to reach EBITDA of $495 million by 2021 due to doubling exports, as well as investments and strategic acquisitions.
According to the company’s financial report on the website, Kernel plans by 2021 to increase production of bulk oil to 1.877 million tonnes, sales to 1.753 million tonnes. The company plans to achieve such figures through the construction of a new processing plant or the acquisition of a local player in Western Ukraine.
In addition, the group plans to increase sales of bottled oil in monetary terms to $150 million, keeping 131 million liters in natural terms, to increase throughput to 8.9 million tonnes through the commissioning in 2019 of a new grain terminal, Transbulkterminal, as well as raise grain sales to 8 million tonnes, the storage capacity to 5 million tonnes.
The company’s net profit for the last four quarters (April 2017-March 2018) was $35 million, which is 5 times less than in the 2017 financial year. Revenue for this period was $2.124 billion, EBITDA stood at $232 million, which is 2.1% and 27.3% respectively less than the figures for 2017.
Kernel is the world’s largest producer and exporter of sunflower oil, the leading producer and supplier of agricultural products from the Black Sea region to the world markets.

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FREENET SEES 24% RISE IN EBITDA IN 2017, EXPANDS SUBSCRIBERS’ BASE BY 11%

Freenet LLC Internet provider (the O3 trademark, Kyiv) increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 24.1% in 2017, to UAH 73.87 million, and its subscribers’ base expanded by 11%, to 134,400 users.
The press service of the company reported last week that in the past five years gross revenue of the operator soared 2.6-fold, including by 23.4% in 2017, to UAH 178.2 million.
EBITDA margin reached 50% in 2017.
Last year the company invested UAH 84.46 million in development of own networks, which is UAH 20 million more than in 2016.
Today Freenet has 17 branches and subscribers’ servicing centers in nine regions of Ukraine.
Freenet provides services under the O3trademark. It is the national operator of broadband Internet access.
The company builds networks using FTTx technology using 10 and 40 gigabit fiber-optic cables.

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