Business news from Ukraine

Kremenchuk Steel earned UAH 50.3 mln in profit

In 2022, Kremenchuk Steel Plant JSC (Kremenchuk, Poltava region), part of the industrial assets of TAS Group, posted a net profit of UAH 50.281 million, while it ended 2021 with a net loss of UAH 56.833 million.

According to the agenda of the company’s general meeting of shareholders published in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) on November 13, the company’s uncovered loss as of January 1, 2023 amounted to UAH 56.886 million.

The shareholders intend to amend the charter, review the reports of the supervisory board for 2021 and 2022, consider the conclusions of the audit reports, approve the results of the company’s financial and economic activities for these years, determine the procedure for distributing profits (compensation for losses), approve annual reports, hold elections of the supervisory board, and consider other issues.

As reported, Kremenchuk Steel posted a net loss of UAH 22.81 million in 2020.

Kremenchuk Steel is a leading Ukrainian foundry producing steel castings for freight cars and heavy trucks.

According to the second quarter of 2023, Defano Investments Ltd (Cyprus) owns 48.4421% of the shares of PJSC “KSP”, FinEuroVector Financial Company LLC – 18.8392%, Alfa Cross Financial Company – 24.9%, Alta Finance LLC – 5.7276%.

TAS Group was founded in 1998. Its business interests include the financial sector (banking and insurance segments), industry, real estate, agriculture, and venture capital projects. The founder and major shareholder of the group is Sergey Tigipko.

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Oschadbank’s net profit has quadrupled

State-owned Oschadbank quadrupled its net profit in January-August this year compared to the same period in 2022 – from UAH 2.3 billion to more than UAH 9.4 billion, including a net profit of UAH 1.2 billion in August.

“The final financial result was also affected by the revaluation of financial instruments in the securities portfolio: it added about UAH 1.5 billion to the total profit,” the press service of the financial institution told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

The state-owned bank notes an improvement in all key financial indicators. In particular, its net interest income increased by 39% to UAH 12.1 billion compared to the figures for 8 months of 2022, and net commission income by 30% to UAH 4.4 billion.

Operating profit amounted to UAH 7.8 billion, which is more than twice as much as in the same period last year.

In addition, as noted in the press service, Oschad has sufficient liquidity and capital at its disposal.

According to the information provided, the regulatory capital adequacy ratio of the financial institution as of September 1 this year amounted to 18.48%, while the established standard of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) is 10%.

At the same time, the bank has so far refrained from forecasting its financial results for this year.

According to the NBU, as of July 1, 2023, Oschadbank ranked 2nd in terms of assets (UAH 324.74 billion) among 64 banks operating in the country, and first in terms of the number of branches in the country (1183).

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NBU expects increase in bank profit tax to 38% to bring UAH 20 bln to budget

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) proposes to raise the corporate income tax rate from 18% to 38% in 2023-2024, NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said.

“Our forecast is that additional budget revenues if the current rate is raised to 38% will total more than UAH 20 billion this year and next year,” he wrote on Facebook.

According to him, such a tax design will have a limited impact on macrofinancial stability and at the same time support Ukraine’s defense capabilities.

The NBU governor, citing the monitoring of the financial condition and the results of the assessment of the banks’ stability, believes that financial institutions are quite capable of making additional payments in the current environment. According to the regulator, the tax rate increase will have a limited impact on lending and deposit rates, given the banks’ sufficient margins.

As reported, the National Bank considers additional taxation of banks to be a justified temporary step in view of the war, seeing financial and legal grounds for this, but proposes to increase the tax rate on banks’ profits instead of taxing net interest income as proposed by MPs.

According to Pyshnyi, this is the version the NBU will discuss with the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy in the near future.

He also said that the market participants with whom the central bank communicated were sympathetic to this position.

According to the NBU, the net profit of 64 operating Ukrainian banks in the first seven months of this year amounted to UAH 83.2 billion, while the income tax was UAH 14.4 billion, including UAH 34.4 billion and UAH 7.9 billion for PrivatBank, and UAH 18.8 billion and UAH 0.1 billion for four other state-owned banks.

In late August, MPs submitted to the Rada a bill to tax banks’ net interest income at a rate of 5% in 2024-2026 (in addition to corporate income tax), which could bring in about UAH 10 billion to the state budget next year, according to their estimates. In the first half of 2023, banks’ interest income reached UAH 141 billion, including UAH 73.5 billion from transactions with government securities, and net interest income for the same period amounted to UAH 93.6 billion, up 75% compared to the pre-war period of 2021.

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Ukrnafta has received UAH 700 mln of profit

PJSC “Ukrnaftoburnia” (“UNB”) according to the results of work in the first half of 2023 received a profit of 700 million UAH, said the director of PJSC “Ukrnafta”, to which the company is transferred in management, Sergiy Koretskyy.

“In the first half of 2023, the company received 700 million UAH of profit. There are reasons to believe that according to the results of the second half of the year “UNB” will be able to earn almost three times more. We state the fact of a significant increase in realization prices,” he wrote on his Facebook page.

“As stipulated by the concluded contracts with ARMA, 90% of net profit will be transferred in favor of the state,” Koretskyi specified.

According to him, the company also managed to eliminate technological deficiencies and launch the 88th well.

“After the drilling was completed, we received a flow of high-pressure formation water from the upper horizons. We carried out repair and water isolation works. Consequently, we increased production by 170 thousand cubic meters of gas and 30 tons of condensate per day,” he said.

In addition, “UNB” plans to soon complete commissioning of the booster compressor station, which will slow down the natural decline in production.

As reported, after the arrest and court decision to transfer to the management of ARMA “Ukrnaftoburnia”, LLC “Sakhalinskoye”, LLC “Sirius-1”, LLC “East Europe Petroleum” in the case on the legality of subsoil use of the Sakhalin field, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine by the order №454-r of May 23, 2023 supported the proposal to transfer to the management of “Ukrnafta” corporate rights in these companies.

At the end of June, the AMCU authorized Ukrnafta to receive shares in the authorized capitals of these companies for management. On July 7, the acts of acceptance and transfer of assets were signed.

“Ukrnafta is one of the largest private gas production companies in Ukraine. Since 2010, it has been developing the Sakhalin oil and gas condensate field (Krasnokutsk district, Kharkiv region) with reserves of 15 billion cubic meters of gas. The company’s gross production in 2020 will amount to 725.4 million cubic meters of gas and 80.8 thousand tons of oil and condensate, in 2021 – 691.3 million cubic meters and 76.6 thousand tons.

For the Sakhalin field as a whole, gas production in 2020 amounted to 844.3 million cubic meters and 86 thousand tons of oil and condensate, in 2021 – 789.5 million cubic meters and 80.8 thousand tons.

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IMK Agroholding reduced its net profit by 44.6%

IMK Agroholding made $6.28 million in net profit in January-June 2023, which is 44.6% less than in the same period last year, and is largely due to higher logistics and distribution costs and cheaper agricultural products, the company said in a report on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Thursday.

According to the report, the holding’s revenue increased by 61.6% to $71.95 million, including exports that increased by 41.2% to $58.9 million.

At the same time, the revaluation of biological assets and agro-products in January-June this year brought 23.8% less than in January-June last year – $23.11 million.

And while the increase in cost of sales was not as significant as revenue, as a result, gross profit increased by only 8.6% to $32.54 million.

Due to the growth of logistics and distribution costs 2.4 times (up to $13.24 mln), the operating profit decreased almost 2.1 times to $8.65 mln compared to the same period last year.

At the same time, the situation was partially offset by positive exchange rate differences of $0.60 mln in January-June this year against exchange rate losses of $2.55 mln in the same period last year.

Normalized EBITDA for the first half of the year amounted to $17.06 mln, which is 41% less than in the first half of last year, due to higher selling expenses and lower crop prices.

It is specified that the main revenue of IMC in the reporting period brought sales of 329.11 thousand tons of corn – $62.37 million and 40.42 thousand tons of wheat – $8.93 million.

Net cash flow from operating activities in the first half of 2023 amounted to $12.6 million, while it was negative $7.68 million in the first half of 2022.

Although the volume of investments decreased by 30% to $2.66 mln, due to a significant increase in outflows from financial operations the net cash flow was still negative – $1.81 mln, which is, however, many times better than in the first half of last year – $10.06 mln.

As of the end of June this year, IMC’s current liabilities fell to $57.22 million ($66.84 million a year earlier), while non-current liabilities fell to $117.87 million ($155.20 million).

The company’s free cash flow at mid-year was $23.05 million, compared with $24.86 million at the beginning of this year and $17.36 million a year ago.

IMK is an integrated group of companies operating in Sumy, Poltava and Chernihiv regions (north and center of Ukraine). It controls 120.3 thousand hectares (120.0 thousand hectares under cultivation). As of June 30, 2023, the group operated in two segments: crop production and grain elevators and warehouses.

The agroholding’s net loss in 2022 amounted to $1.1 mln vs. net income of $78.7 mln a year earlier, with revenue down 37.3% to $114 mln. EBITDA tripled to $36.2 mln.

In the first quarter of 2023, IMC had a net loss of $4.10 mln, which is 2.6 times less than in the same period last year. The holding’s revenue increased by 11% to $41.96 mln. EBITDA for the quarter was positive and amounted to $1.37 mln against negative $0.13 mln in the first quarter of last year due to sales growth and stabilization of the hryvnia.

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Nova Posta has increased net profit almost fivefold

The net profit of Nova Posta LLC for the first half of 2023 amounted to UAH 2 bln 402.5 mln, which is almost five times higher than in the first half of 2022 (UAH 483.9 mln), according to the updated rating of the company at the level of “uaAA” from the rating agency Standard-Rating.

According to its report, Novaya Posta’s revenue for January-June increased by 83.9% to UAH 16 billion 743.8 million.

It also points out that the company’s EBITDA profit in the first half of 2023 also grew strongly – more than 2.2 times, to UAH 2 billion 910.1 million.

“The analysis of the statements for the first half of 2023 indicates: a high level of coverage of liabilities by equity capital, a very high share in the structure of equity capital of retained earnings, an increase in business volumes, weighty financial results, as well as a high level of coverage of the company’s liabilities by its income,” the rating agency noted.

It specified that at the end of the first half of 2023, such improvement of indicators allowed to increase the ratio of EBITDA to long-term and current liabilities from 14.33% to 28.04%, and the same indicator for EBIT profit – from 5.21% to 17.72%.

According to the publication, Nova Posta’s equity capital for the first half of 2023 increased by 36.9% to UAH 8 billion 918.6 million, while liabilities – only by 12.4% to UAH 10 billion 379.4 million.

It is indicated that the growth of equity capital, as in previous periods, occurred due to the increase in the volume of retained earnings in its structure: for the first two quarters of 2023, it grew by 37.1% and as of July 1, 2023, its share in the equity capital of the company increased to 99.6%.

According to the information, Novaya Posta’s accounts receivable increased by 46.5% to UAH 3 billion 303.6 million in the first half of 2023, while accounts payable increased by 18.1% to UAH 8 billion 592.0 million, and free cash flow increased by 12.6% to UAH 758.2 million.

Overall, the company’s assets in the first half of this year increased by 22.5% to UAH 19 billion 298.0 million, while fixed assets increased by 10.5% to UAH 7 billion 561.7 million.

Founded in 2001, Novaya Posta has more than 10,000 outlets and 14,000 post offices in Ukraine. It provides a full range of logistics and related services.

Two issues of the company’s bonds series “C” and “D” are currently circulating on the market with a nominal volume of UAH 800 mln each and an interest rate of 24% and 23% per annum, respectively, maturing in January 2024 and 2025.

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