The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering a project for the issue of a EUR35 million multi-currency loan to France’s Soufflet Group for the work of its subsidiaries in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and Serbia. According to the bank, the board of its directors plans to discuss this project at a meeting on October 3 this year.
It is assumed that the funds will be used to replenish working capital necessary for the subsidiaries to work in the agro-market of these countries: from storage and processing into malt to trade in agricultural products.
Among the customers are Soufflet Agro Ukraine and Soufflet Agro Polska, which are 100% subsidiaries of Soufflet Group.
In the first half of 2018, Soufflet Agro Ukraine LLC saw revenue rise by 60.3%, to UAH 2.707 billion, while net profit fall by 2.8%, to UAH 109.93 million.
Last year the company more than doubled revenue, to UAH 3.835 billion, posting a net loss of UAH 23.23 million against UAH 31.49 million net profit a year earlier.
As a result of the next wave of privatization, investors who are ready to invest in their development of Ukrainian companies should become their new owners, EBRD Managing Director for Eastern Europe and the Caucasus Francis Malige is convinced.
Our task is to organize privatization in such a way that a real investor who will invest money will come, we need to prepare this process, he told Interfax-Ukraine.
On the one hand, it is unacceptable that sometimes this process takes so much time, but on the other hand – I would not want to see that the new owners of the companies have nothing to do with them, investors should be real, Malige noted.
As reported, in early 2018 the working group on privatization was updated. It included representatives of the Reforms Delivery Office under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, SAGSUR, the World Bank, the EBRD, the International Monetary Fund, the USAID, and the EU Delegation to Ukraine.
The working group was renewed to effectively coordinate the authorities, prepare recommendations and proposals for the draft resolutions of the Cabinet of Ministers on privatization and conditions of the sale of public property, attract international financial and technical assistance to prepare for privatization and put up the objects for sale and analyze the main problems of ensuring transparent and competitive privatization.
EBRD, FINANCE DEVELOPMENT, INVESTORS, OWNERS, PRIVATIZATION, UKRAINIAN ENTERPRISES
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has lent a $20 million loan to Zerno-Agrotrade LLC and Tsukoragroprom LLC, owned by the Astarta agro-industrial holding, for replenishment of their working capital.
“Astarta will introduce advanced IT solutions necessary for precise farming that it develops in Ukraine. These modern agricultural technologies will allow boosting the yield of agricultural crops and reducing the use of mineral fertilizers by 15%,” EBRD Senior Adviser for External Relations Anton Usov wrote on Facebook.
In the next three years, Astarta also plans to increase the area of land on which it will use the technology of precision farming.
“In the context of this project, Astarta will also offer a high-quality integrated training program for graduates of schools and students of universities who want to work in the agricultural sector of Ukraine,” Usov noted.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding operating in Poltava, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, and Kharkiv regions. It consists of eight sugar refineries, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of about 250,000 hectares, a soybean processing facility, dairy farms and a complex that produce energy from agricultural residues.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will consider a loan worth up to EUR 150 million for LLC SyvashEnergoProm, a subsidiary of Norway’s NBT, for the construction of a 250 MW wind farm in Kherson region, the lender said on its website. “This is a long-term senior loan of up to EUR 150 million in an A/B structure, of which up to EUR 75 million would be funded from the EBRD resources and the remainder would be syndicated in a B-loan structure to eligible institutions. The remaining project financing is expected to be provided via parallel loans from IFIs, DFIs, and other investors,” the Bank said.
The total cost of the project is EUR 369 million.
The project will help support the development of renewable energy in Ukraine and the overall decarbonisation of the energy sector. As was reported, NBT SA, which is a Norwegian wind farm developer with operating wind farms in China, in April 2018 bought LLC SyvashEnergoProm (operates a wind farm whose capacity is about 3 MW). It plans to build a wind farm with a capacity of 250-330 MW in neighboring areas.
Ukrenergo is preparing a new joint project with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) “Modernization of Transmission Networks” with an approximate cost of EUR 149 million, the company’s press service has reported. “The goal of the project is the replacement of power equipment, the reconstruction of substations with the introduction of an automated control system for technological processes,” Ukrenergo said. As part of the preparation of the project, representatives of consultancy companies selected by the EBRD, namely Tetra Tech (the United States) and AF-Mercados EMI (Spain) visited ten substations of Ukrenergo (750 kV Zakhidnoukrainska, 400 kV Mukachevo, 330 kV Novovolynsk, 330 kV Hrabiv, 750 kV Donbaska, 330 kV Myrhorod, 330 kV Kupiansk, 330 kV Mykolaivska, 330 kV Trykhaty, and 330 kV Lisova).
The consultants should prepare feasibility studies for the reconstruction of the listed substations, and the project is planned to be implemented at the expense of EBRD loan funds until 2021.
Modernization of the substations will increase the efficiency and reliability of electricity transmission, will allow to manage the equipment of the substations from the regional centers. Also, its implementation will be the basis for the introduction of a smart grid technology in the framework of the “Second Electricity Transmission Project” implemented by Ukrenergo jointly with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD).
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is providing a seven-year loan of $15 million to a major manufacturer and supplier of fixtures and equipment for retail stores and warehouses – Modern Expo Group, the bank reported on Friday. The proceeds will be used to increase production volumes at the two principal manufacturing sites in Lutsk (Ukraine) and in Vitebsk (Belarus). The company will also be able to restructure its balance sheet.
Modern-Expo is a privately owned company, which has been operating in Ukraine for over 20 years and expanded to Belarus in 2014. It is one of the largest manufacturers and suppliers of fixtures and equipment for retail stores and warehouses in central and Eastern Europe.
The main plant with an area of over 65,000 square meters and the Ukrainian office are located in Lutsk. In 2013, the group launched production in Verkhniodniprovsk (Dnipropetrovsk region) with an area of 22,000 square meters. In 2017, RED POS equipment manufacturer (Lviv) joined the group.
Around 65% of company revenues are generated from export sales to more than 60 countries around the world. It supplies its products to major international retailers including Auchan, Carrefour, Billa, Nestle and many others.
The EBRD is the largest international financial investor in Ukraine. To date, the bank has made a cumulative commitment of almost EUR 12.1 billion across some 400 projects since the start of its operations in the country in 1993.
Since the start of its operations in Belarus in 1992, the EBRD has invested over EUR 2 billion in 95 projects in various sectors of the country’s economy.
