The manufacturer of upholstered furniture Hjort Knudsen (Denmark) intends to invest EUR 11 million in the construction of an enterprise for production of designer furniture on the outskirts of Rivne as part of expanding its activities in Ukraine, the press service of Rivne Regional State Administration reports.
“Another powerful investor is entering Rivne region. The Danish sewing company Hjort Knudsen decided to create a branch in the region. The arrival of such an investor indicates attractive business conditions in the region, which will attract other donors,” head of the regional state administration Vitaliy Koval said during a meeting with Director of United Fashion Ukraine Steen Laursen.
The investor plans to build a production facility with an area of 40,000 square meters, create 1,000 jobs. The plans include the creation of a closed cycle production with the manufacture of value-added products.
The project was being prepared for about a year with the involvement of the regional state administration, the InvestInRivne agency.
Currently, Hjort Knudsen has four branches in Ukraine – the divisions of United Fashion Ukraine, namely in Lviv, Pochayiv (Ternopil region), Velyki Mosty and Brody (both in Lviv region). The enterprises produce traditional and designer sofas, club and office chairs, the assortment includes more than 200 fabric models and a wide range of leather upholstery.
Synevo Laboratory has launched a specialized COVID center in Kyiv to conduct a complex of research on COVID-19, investments in it exceeded EUR 300,000.
According to a press release from the company, the Synevo COVID Center includes a high-tech laboratory for performing COVID-19 tests by PCR, as well as a specially equipped department for customer service and sampling for coronavirus disease research.
“The COVID-19 epidemic is gaining momentum, and the demand for mass testing of the population is growing every day. Given the expected scale of testing, we have decided to open a specialized COVID center with a separate laboratory that will specialize exclusively in PCR testing for COVID-19,” Mykola Butenko, the director for development at Synevo, said.
The company plans to soon launch PCR testing in other branches throughout Ukraine.
“For now, the test can be passed in the COVID center in Kyiv. It is located at 2/58 Pivnichna Street. But, very soon, we plan to launch testing in most branches throughout Ukraine,” press secretary of the company Viktoria Ilinska said on Facebook.
PCR testing for COVID-19 at the Synevo COVID center will be performed using reagents from BAG Diagnostics (Germany).
In addition, from November, Synevo plans to launch tests on automatic equipment and reagents from Abbott (the United States).
The financial company Investohills Vesta, together with investors from the European Union and the United States, has created the Investohills Helianthus $100 million seed fund to invest in the Ukrainian market of distressed debts, the company said on its website.
According to the report, the first issue of shares of the relevant fund (in the amount of UAH 1 billion in June 2020) was approved by the National Securities and Stock Market Commission and distributed among investors.
Investohills Vesta will manage the fund’s activities in the interests of foreign investors, as well as provide them with a range of services in the field of redemption and collection of bad debts, litigation, storage and management of distressed and collateralized assets.
“The Ukrainian bad debt market is interesting to foreign funds specializing in such investments. But they are stopped by Ukraine’s specifics: weak protection of creditors’ rights at the level of legislation and the judiciary. Investohills Group and the fund… has offered a full cycle of support for investment-attractive deals with bad debts,” the founder and managing partner of the financial company, Andriy Volkov, said.
According to the release, on August 19, 2020, the fund closed its first deal, having bought out a portfolio of troubled assets of VTB, Rodovid and Financial Initiative banks from the Deposit Guarantee Fund for UAH 1.314 billion.
EU, FUND, INVEST, INVESTOHILLS VESTA, US
Kovalska Industrial and Construction Group intends to invest $ 70 million in the construction of five business centers in the Unit.City innovation park, CEO of the group Serhiy Pylypenko has said at a press briefing.
“The Kovalska team will undertake the construction of a cluster, which, in particular, will include five business campuses with a total area of 70,000 square meters. Investments in the development of the innovation park from the group will exceed $70 million. The project is expected to be completed in four years,” a press release from the company says.
Pylypenko noted, joining the project as a 100% campus investor will allow the company to gain a foothold in the status of a professional commercial real estate developer.
All properties are expected to be certified according to the Leed Silver green standard. To develop the projects, Kovalska involved the Polish architectural bureau APA Wojcoechowski and the international engineering company TEBIN.
“Thanks to its financial, technical resources and its construction capabilities, Kovalska fully takes control of this project – from the concept to the completion of construction and management,” Pylypenko said, stressing that the company is a 100% investor in the project.
According to the founder of UFuture holding, Vasyl Khmelnytsky, who is quoted by the press service, the Unit.City project has been implemented only by 7%. Attracting powerful strategic partners to the development of this project will provide an opportunity to bring it to the global level in 2023.
The Miroplast plant (Dnipro), part of the Alef corporation of businessman Vadym Yermolaev and one of the largest producers of PVC window profiles in Eastern Europe, is investing more than UAH 60 million in the modernization of production facilities, planning to upgrade its facilities by the end of 2020.
“As a result, the number of extruders will increase to 31, the monthly production capacity will grow up to 5,870 tonnes of PVC profiles, and the maximum annual capacity will be 70,440 tonnes, which is 30% more than in 2019,” Yermolaev said on his Facebook page.
He said that part of the investments will be committed to modernizing warehouse equipment and improving warehouse logistics in general.
According to information on the company’s website, from 2012 to 2018, the number of extruders increased from 27 to 29, and the maximum monthly capacity – from 4,000 tonnes to 4,500 tonnes.
According to the company’s press service, high-speed extrusion lines for the production of PVC profiles and window sills have been purchased, and the increase in capacity is due to an increase in demand for Ukrainian-made products among domestic and foreign consumers.
Miroplast began its operations in 2006. In 2007, seven extruders with a monthly capacity of 780 tonnes were installed. The company manufactures profile systems for windows and doors under the WDS trademark.
Biopharma pharmaceutical company (Kyiv) plans to invest $7 million in construction of new office and laboratory complex.
The company told Interfax-Ukraine that the complex will be built on the territory of its plant in Bila Tserkva (Kyiv region).
“Some of the facilities in the territory of the scientific and production complex [in Bila Tserkva] were sold to STADA Ukraine. We decided to build a new building. It will be a separate building from the building of the fractionator plant,” the company said.
In addition, the company said that Biopharma sent $500,000 to buy laboratory equipment for the diagnosis of COVID-19, test systems, artificial lung ventilators, and blood gas analyzers.
Biopharma is a Ukrainian biotechnology company, the only plant in Eastern Europe that has modern technology, has been manufacturing and developing drugs from donated plasma for almost 50 years.
