OKKO Group Holding plans to start construction of a ski resort in 2021 on the territory of the Slavske amalgamated territorial community (Lviv region).
Taras Lozynsky, the deputy head of the department of tourism and resorts of the Lviv Regional Administration, told Interfax-Ukraine that the investment will amount to $500 million.
“This is a very long-term project that will last about four years. It will start in 2021. Now all issues with the land have been resolved, the next step is the development of the project, design estimates and the start of construction work,” he said.
According to Lozynsky, the resort will be built 15 km far from Slavske in the villages of Verkhnia Rozhanka and Volosianka.
“Austrian experts came to study the slopes, the height of the mountains, infrastructure and these settlements were included in the strategy,” he said.
“OKKO registered all its shares in Slavske and, accordingly, the tax paid by the company remains here in the community. These funds will be reinvested in the development of ski infrastructure, in the Slavske brand, in road repairs and community development,” Lozynsky added.
According to him, the resort will be eight or nine years ahead of Bukovel in technical development. The complex will include over 60 km of skiing pistes. The project will be implemented in three stages.
OKKO Group is an all-Ukrainian holding, the flagship of which is the network of OKKO filling stations (Concern Galnaftogaz). The OKKO Group includes more than 10 diversified businesses in the field of production, trade, construction, insurance, service and other services.
The holding also includes the Vash Dom housing construction company, which is engaged in the design, construction and implementation of housing projects.
The shareholders and institutional investors of the holding companies are the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, GoldmanSachs, Horizon Capital, Renaissance Capital, Genesis AssetManagers, LLP, and others.
The owner of DCH Group, businessman Oleksandr Yaroslavsky intends to invest EUR 5.5 million in the creation of a production of low-floor trams on the basis of the Ecopolis HTZ high-tech business park in Kharkiv, according to the DCH website.
“Production will be complex, so called, design-creation-release. Our tram should be better than European models in terms of price and quality. In one and a half or two years we plan to start mass production,” the press service quotes plant’s director general Andriy Koval during the presentation of the production site last week.
He added that a large amount of repair work is to be done at the site, but this is not a problem.
In turn, Yaroslavsky recalled that the city authorities, represented by Hennadiy Kernes (Kharkiv Mayor) and Ihor Terekhov (First Deputy), had asked him about the idea of creating a tram.
According to DCH, the engineering and consulting support of the project will be provided by partners from the Czech Republic. Other details of the project have not been given yet.
“The tram production will become the first resident of the industrial part of the Ecopolis HTZ high-tech business park besides Kharkiv Tractor Plant itself. In addition, we have many global technology companies, we are preparing to cooperate with. For example, a memorandum has been signed with Hewlett Packard Enterprise,” director of Ecopolis HTZ Managing Company Vitaliy Barannikov said.
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.
