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.
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.
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.
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.
PJSC “VF Ukraine” (TM “Vodafone Ukraine”), the second largest mobile operator in Ukraine, in January-June 2023 increased net profit by 3.4 times compared to the same period last year – up to UAH 2.266 billion, the press service of the mobile operator reported.
According to the interim consolidated financial report of the company, its revenue increased by 4.9% to UAH 10.404 billion, and operating profit – by 45.1% to UAH 3.712 billion.
It is indicated that the company’s OIBDA increased by 3% year-on-year to UAH 5.934 bln. OIBDA margin slightly decreased by 1 p.p. to 57%.
The company clarified that the jump in net profit was due to a decrease in foreign exchange losses due to the fixation of the dollar to hryvnia exchange rate by the National Bank since July last year.
In addition, in the first half of 2023, Vodafone Ukraine’s losses from the war decreased by 8.2 times – to UAH 116 million.
Subscriber base in the second quarter of 2023 remained stable – 15.2 million customers. “Decrease by 8% compared to the second quarter of last year due to a decrease in the number of mobile users due to active hostilities, inaccessibility of mobile networks in temporarily occupied territories and in the war zone, mass migration”, – explained in the press release.
It is specified that more than 2 million subscribers of “Vodafone Ukraine” remain abroad and continue to use the services of the company. At the same time, revenue from roaming services decreased by 6.5% – to UAH 446 mln, while the total revenue from mobile services increased by 12.3% – to UAH 8.1 bln.
The company’s ARPU increased in the second quarter to 108.4 UAH per month from 104 UAH in the first quarter due to an increase in mobile Internet penetration and usage volumes.
“Vodafone Ukraine” increased capital investments by 75% – up to UAH 2.231 billion, directing them to the renewal of destroyed infrastructure, operational repairs of the network and preparation for work in conditions of possible power shortages in the winter period.
In particular, 9.5 thousand base stations of the company were equipped with new batteries of a new type, which are less sensitive to voltage fluctuations in the network and frequent power outages, as well as have 2.5-3 times higher charging speed.
To ensure emergency power supply, the company has additionally equipped 1.12 thousand nodal technical objects with backup power supply by means of stationary generator sets and prepared 522 mobile generators, a reserve of diesel fuel and gasoline has been created for their operation. It is indicated that the company’s specialists are testing new solutions at a number of facilities using alternative energy sources, in particular, solar power plants and microturbine generators.
The text of the financial report emphasizes that as of June 30, 2023, Vodafone Ukraine was in compliance with all debt covenants. At the same time, the company remains concerned about the moratorium on cross-border currency settlements, which may cause future difficulties with the redemption in February 2025 Eurobonds for $ 400 million. In this regard, the company’s management is considering several options in case the moratorium continues to operate: in particular, refinancing at the expense of financial institutions, negotiating changes in the terms of bonds with holders of Eurobonds, the introduction of additional measures to manage and control cash outflows to maximize the company’s ability to meet its debt covenants.
“Vodafone Ukraine” provides 3G and 4G high-speed internet and fixed-line services, mobile communications and develops the Internet of Things (IoT), technologies and solutions for Smart City, big data analytics, financial and technological services, cloud services. Since 2019, the company is part of NEQSOL Holding group of companies of businessman Nasib Hasanov.
NEQSOL Holding’s activities cover oil and gas, telecommunications, construction and other high-tech sectors in the UK, USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, UAE, Bangladesh. The Group entered the telecommunications industry in the early 2000s.
PrJSC Barskyi Machine-Building Plant (Barmash, Bar, Vinnytsia region), a major Ukrainian manufacturer of equipment for the food industry, gas and electric boilers, plans to use its net profit of UAH 1.6 million in 2022 for business activities.
This is stipulated by the draft decision of the company’s general shareholders’ meeting scheduled for September 28, the agenda of which has been published in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC).
In particular, the shareholders intend to amend the company’s charter and replace the management board with a new management board. In this regard, it is planned to terminate the powers of the Chairman of the Board Ilya Luka, his First Deputy Gennadiy Luka and members of the Board Vasyl Gontar and Oleksandr Lototskiy.
At the same time, it is proposed to elect Ilya Luka (CEO) and Gennadiy Luka (director) to the board, who, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs, are the ultimate beneficiaries of Barmash.
The Bar Machine-Building Plant produces, among other things, equipment for the alcoholic beverage, wine, oil and fat, canning, confectionery, and bakery industries, and since 2000, gas, electric, and solid fuel heating boilers under the ThermoBar brand.
According to opendatabot, in 2022, the company reduced its net income by 19.4% compared to 2021, while net profit increased to UAH 1.6 million from UAH 0.92 million.
According to the company, its assets amounted to UAH 94.29 million in 2022 (down 12.7%), including total receivables, which decreased by 36% to UAH 9.8 million. Current liabilities decreased by 7.2% to UAH 34.3 million, while long-term liabilities decreased by 14.4% to UAH 4.8 million.
Retained earnings amounted to UAH 2.52 million compared to UAH 0.92 million a year earlier.
