Privatization of large-sized enterprises in Ukraine could bring $1 billion to the national budget in the coming years, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has said.
“We also have high expectations from large-scale privatization, which should bring about $1 billion to the budget in the coming years,” the prime minister said during a government meeting on Wednesday.
The big privatization will be launched as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over, and the Dnipro Hotel will become its pilot project, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
“As to medium-sized and big privatization, everything is ready. It will be launched after COVID-19. The first target – the Dnipro Hotel – is ready. As we promised, we started with public administration agency,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday.
The president also said the rest of hotels on balance of the public administration agency will be handed over to the State Property Fund.
The privatization targets have been “cleared off” legal cases, Zelensky said.
Private joint-stock company United Mining-Chemical Company, which the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine jointly with the advisor BDO is preparing for privatization, is of the biggest interest among potential buyers, Head of the SPF Dmytro Sennychenko has said. “United Mining-Chemical Company is still the flagship of large-scale privatization: according to the advisor BDO, which is completing the preparation of marketing materials, 16-18 companies have already announced their intentions to take part in the competition,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
“Among them are two Ukrainian holdings, and the rest are well-known international companies: Japanese, Australian and others that will compete, having received information about the company, about reserves, about deposits,” Sennychenko said.
He explained this significant interest in the competition by the fact that titanium production has a value chain from final consumers to semi-finished products and titanium sponge manufacturers and ore mining companies.
“We will look at the profiles of these customers together with the relevant services and analyze them from the point of view of strategic security… We will carefully look at what holdings are there, what is the ownership structure,” the head of the SPF said. He called the publication about the alleged preparation of this facility for sale to buyers from Russia stove-piping.
Sennychenko recalled that the advisor and international professional companies, together with the SPF and the competition commission, will prepare draft conditions for potential buyers. However, the Cabinet of Ministers will finally approve these conditions.
Kyiv’s business court has annulled a ban the State Property Fund of Ukraine (SPF) from preparing for the privatization of PJSC Centrenergo, passing a ruling under a petition of the SPF on February 6, 2020.
The fund said on its website that at the end of January, the fund started the procedure of selecting investment advisors for the privatization of Centrenergo and is attracting an audit company with an impeccable reputation to conduct audit of the enterprise for 2019.
“In February, procedures to prepare a number of other large facilities for the privatization will be launched,” the SPF said.
As reported, Vitaliy Kropachev’s Ukrdoninvest LLC (Kyiv) repeatedly secured a lawsuit against the State Property Fund in the case of the privatization of PJSC Centrenergo by banning the fund from taking any actions to implement it.
Prosecutor’s office in Kyiv opened criminal proceedings on making the deliberately illegal decision to ban the privatization of PJSC Centrenergo by a judge of the business court of Kyiv.
The Cabinet of Ministers has transferred 530 state-owned enterprises for privatization, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has stated. “The government transferred 530 state enterprises for privatization. In almost four months, more state objects were transferred for privatization than in all 28 years of independence,” Honcharuk wrote on Telegram.
The total book value of the assets agreed for sale exceeded UAH 12 billion.
PJSC Centrenergo power generating company is in the top priority of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine regarding “large-scale” privatization, Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has said. “Centrenergo is in the top priority for privatization. And I want this company to be privatized by an external, real player. And the government will do everything for some kind of strong player to come here,” he said during the Kyiv International Economic Forum on Saturday.
He emphasized that the State Property Fund (SPF) is currently preparing the company for privatization.
“There is a manager there [in the State Property Fund] who does not depend on any oligarch,” Honcharuk emphasized.
Earlier, SPF Head Dmytro Sennychenko predicted the sale of Centrenergo in 2021.
