Businessman Vasyl Khmelnytsky’s UFuture Group plans to complete the renovation and expansion of Terminal A, which is the main terminal of Kyiv Sikorsky International Airport (Zhuliany), from 14,000 to 23,500 square meters by May 2019, the project is estimated at UAH 630 million.
“We are building a new [terminal] not to increase the number of passengers, but to create comfort for those who fly,” the businessman said at a press conference on Thursday, explaining that often one time slot at the airport can be shared by seven low-cost airlines.
He says the airport’s throughput capacity, which is about 700 people per hour, can double.
Construction works at the airport began two months ago, Chairman of the airport’s Board of Directors Denys Kostrzhevsky said. The runway will not be closed for the period of the works at the terminal.
“The existing runway is good enough, its warranty is valid. We are not going to overhaul it, sometimes we fix something, improving some processes,” Khmelnytsky said.
Both own reinvested funds of the managing company and loans are the source of financing of the works, Kostrzhevsky said.
Khmelnytsky says that the payback period of investment in the expansion of Terminal A is expected to be from eight to nine years. UFuture invested more than UAH 2.5 billion in the airport’s complex in seven years.
He also said that he was considering the possibility of building a low-priced hotel and hangars next to Terminal A, but it might happen no earlier than the end of its reconstruction.
“Our resources are not unlimited. First, we will build the terminal. I hope we will launch it. It will give us a little more income, and we will make estimates proceeding from this,” Khmelnytsky said.
UFuture Investment Group, headquartered in Brussels, was established in autumn 2017 and united the business projects of Vasyl Khmelnytsky. The group includes the Ukrainian development company UDP, whose specialization is the implementation of large infrastructure projects. In addition, the conglomerate united businesses in such areas as UDP Renewables, the Bila Tserkva industrial park, the innovation parks UNIT.City, and LvivTech.City.
Kyiv Sikorsky International Airport is located in the business center of the capital, seven km from the city center. It is the second largest airport in Ukraine in terms of the number of flights and passenger traffic. The airport has three terminals with a total area being 21,000 square meters. The airport’s runway is able to handle B-737 and A-320 aircraft.
In the nine months of 2018, the airport serviced 2.165 million passengers, which was 57.3% up on January-September 2017. In September 2018 alone, passenger traffic grew by 30.6%, to 307,500 people.
Master-Avia LLC began managing the airport after winning a tender in 2010 and leasing airport property for 49 years.
Khmelnytsky and Kostrzhevsky are the beneficiaries of Master-Avia LLC, according to the state register of legal entities of entrepreneurs, are businessmen. Master-Avia indicates it owns terminals and the apron, while the airfield and the runway are on the balance sheet of municipally owned Kyiv International Airport (Zhuliany).
AIRPORT, KYIV, RECONSTRUCTION, SIKORSKY, TERMINAL, UFUTURE, VASYL KHMELNYTSKY'S
Sweden’s IKEA company, the largest furniture and household goods retailer in the world, plans to open stores in Ukraine, including large ones (30,00 square meters) in the future shopping and entertainment centers of Mandarin Plaza, the founder of the company Vagif Aliyev has said. “We have been negotiating with H&M and with IKEA for 16 years… After [the store with an area of] 5,000 square meters [the opening in the Ocean Mall shopping center of which is scheduled for the end of 2019], we will open IKEA [stores with an area of] 30,000 square meters throughout Kyiv in our large shopping and entertainment centers,” Aliyev, who creates a network of 10 shopping and entertainment centers, said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
According to him, after the construction of the Ocean Mall shopping center and the Blockbuster Mall shopping center is completed, the developer intends to start implementing the Lesnaya shopping mall (opening in 2020) and the Hippodrome (Yuzhny) shopping and entertainment center, where IKEA can also be opened.
Aliyev said that three or four stores of the Swedish retailer in his mall will have 5,000-7,000 square meters, another three – 30,000 square meters. At the same time, he said that IKEA will not be opened at the Lavina Mall shopping center and the Blockbuster Mall shopping center.
In turn, the representative of IKEA South-East Europe Vladyslav Lalich neither confirmed nor refuted the words of the developer, saying only that the company “really plans to stay in Ukraine for a long time, but develop step by step.”
“We want to combine the opening ceremony of our first IKEA store with the opening of the Ocean Mall shopping center at the end of summer next year. At the time of opening, the store will have 3,600 SKU (product names), but their number will double in half a year,” Lalich said.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) has allowed Dragon Capital Investments Limited (Nicosia, Cyprus) and The Goldman Sachs Group (New York, the United States) to acquire indirect joint control over the Horizon Park office center with a total area of 68,800 square meters in Kyiv. According to the AMC, the committee, in particular, permitted Dragon Capital Investments Limited to indirectly acquire assets in the form of an integrated property complex located at 12 Amosova Street and 12 Hrynchenko Street. “This concentration takes place along with concentration in the form of the mediated (through the subsidiary Horizon Park, Kyiv) acquisition by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. of assets in the form of a single property complex … owned by Ukrsotsbank joint-stock company,” the regulator said.
According to the unified state register, as of October 3, 2018 the owner of 100% in the charter capital of the subsidiary Horizon Park is Melador Investments Limited. The ultimate beneficiary is Tomas Fiala, the owner of Dragon Capital Investments Limited.
Dragon Capital Investments Limited is part of Dragon Capital group of companies, founded in 2000 and one of the largest ones in the Ukrainian investment market.
Kyiv Investment Week, a series of business and technological events for investors, business angels, start-ups and entrepreneurs from all over Europe will be held in Kyiv from October 15 to 19, 2018. For five days, the capital of Ukraine will become the main European platform for communication of international and Ukrainian businesses and start-ups. In total, eight events will be attended by about 3,000 participants and 130 speakers from Europe, America and Asia. The objective of Kyiv Investment Week is to represent Ukraine to foreign investors and help participants establish new business contacts and strengthen partnerships.
Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF) will become the key event of the week. The fifth anniversary KIEF will be held on October 18-19, 2018 and will bring together world-class economists, famous businessmen, investors and visionaries from more than thirty countries. The leitmotif of the forum will be the future of the countries in the high-tech world. Participants in the KIEF are expected to discuss the strategies and tools of competitiveness, consequences of trade wars, investment attractiveness, as well as the introduction of modern technologies in industry, banking and agrarian spheres, etc.
“During Kyiv Investment Week, several promising business events aimed at increasing the investment attractiveness of Ukraine will be concentrated in Kyiv. This is also one of the main tasks of KIEF. To participate in the forum in Kyiv, numerous delegations of potential investors will arrive to familiarize themselves with the business opportunities of Ukraine. Thus, KIEF and Kyiv Investment Week will really influence the improvement of Ukraine’s reputation in the world,” comments Yuriy Pyvovarov, Head of the KIEF Organizing Committee.
Moreover, the Kyiv Investment Week program includes a one-day business tour for foreign investors around the key points of the Ukrainian start-up ecosystem (October 15, 2018); UNIT Investment Summit in the UNIT.City Innovation Park, which will unite investors, who manage more than $300 million, under one roof (October 16, 2018); the evening of the final presentations of the RadarTech PopCorp FinTech Accelerator (October 17, 2018); Kyiv Barcrowling Week, the week of discounts in the best creative bars and restaurants (October 15-18, 2018); CreativeMornings/Kyiv, the monthly breakfast-lecture for creative professionals (October 19, 2018) and Kyiv Silicon Drinkabout, the Friday’s networking party of the Kyiv high-tech community (October 19, 2018).
Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF) is a permanent platform for the formation of Ukraine’s economic development strategy. It is aimed at organizing a dialogue between experts, business and government, adopting the best international experience, creating a roadmap for development and facilitating the conversion of ideas into real actions. www.forumkyiv.org
Koen Group LLC (Kyiv) plans to build a trade and exhibition center worth $500 million near Kyiv in four years, head of the company Naum Koen has said at a press conference. According to him, the complex will be located on a plot of 105 hectares 13 km from Kyiv on the Odesa highway. The project includes a wholesale market with a parking lot for 10,000 cars, as well as a large exhibition center with three hotels. The start of the project is January 2019. It is planned to open the wholesale market in two years, while the implementation of the exhibition center will take another two years.
“We also plan to build a large concert hall for 7,000 seats. There will be three complexes – a trade one, exhibition and a concert hall,” he told Interfax-Ukraine. According to him, the investor in the project could be Cyrus Poonawalla, the head of Poonawalla Group vaccine manufacturer. “I am interested in this project, but I should study it better and then make a decision on investing,” the expert said.
Koen Group LLC was registered in 2016. According to the unified state register of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, its owner is Naum Koen. The charter capital of the company is UAH 300 000 000,00.
Occupancy of Kyiv’s hotels in the highest peak of the tourist season (May-August) grew by 1.6 percentage points (p.p.) in the upscale segment, to 47% and by 5 p.p. in the midscale segment, to 56%, the press service of Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) in Ukraine has reported. According to JLL, Average Daily Room Rate (ADR) in the upscale hotel segment in Kyiv in May-August 2018 grew to $175, which is 10% more than in May-August 2017, while Revenue Per Available Room (RevPAR) grew by $13, to $85.
“May was the month when hotels were occupied the most, when the UEFA Champions League final took place. This event… allowed hotels of the upscale segment to reach occupancy of 59% with the increase of ADR by almost 40%, to $230,” Head of the Hotels & Hospitality Department at JLL Tetiana Veller said.
According to the JLL report, in the midscale segment of the Kyiv’s hotels there was a decrease in ADR by an average of 10%, to $80. At the same time, due to the increase in the occupancy to 56%, RevPAR in this segment increased to $45.
According to the consulting company, Kyiv hotels in the eight months ending August 2018 showed an increase in occupancy by 1 p.p. in the upscale segment and by 2 p.p. in the midscale segment, the growth of ADR – by $15 in the upscale and $2 in the midscale.
