Due to the full-scale war, the mining and metallurgical group Metinvest reduced its annual revenue from $10-12 billion to $5-6 billion, while remaining a profitable company, its CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov said in an interview with the British newspaper The Times.
The war has significantly affected the financial performance of Metinvest, which sells a significant portion of its metal products in Ukraine and exports iron ore, flat-rolled products, and semi-finished products to 51 countries, including China, India, and the US.
According to Ryzhenkov, “before the war, the business usually had an annual income of $10-12 billion, and now this figure is around $5-6 billion. Despite this, the company remains profitable, and the CEO considers the impact of Trump’s tariffs to be insignificant.”
At the same time, it is noted that Metinvest’s largest enterprises were bombed and put out of operation, including the Mariupol metallurgical plants, which were one of the first battlefields. Metinvest’s revenue has halved, and its workforce has shrunk to around 50,000. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs at the group’s enterprises; 8,000 are now serving in the Armed Forces, and 764 employees have been killed.
Despite these losses, top management has managed to keep those who remained in the company motivated. Metinvest is one of the largest private donors to the Ukrainian army, and its steel is used for shelters and military equipment.
“Employees feel that they are part of the resistance. And they are proud of it,” said the CEO.
Metinvest is a vertically integrated group of mining and metallurgical enterprises. Its enterprises are located in Ukraine—in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions—as well as in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The main shareholders of the holding are SCM Group (71.24%) and Smart Holding (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of the Metinvest Group.
The Ukrainian baking industry operates in a highly competitive environment with low profitability, according to Oleksandr Taranenko, president of the All-Ukrainian Bakers Association.
“We bakers only know about 10% profitability from stories. Most companies operate with a margin of 5%, and sometimes even lower. At the same time, costs are constantly rising. For example, the rise in electricity prices has added 1% to the cost price, and this increase cannot be immediately passed on to the price – it takes months,” he said.
According to him, this is why forecasts of a 15-20% increase in the price of mass-market bread are not related to manufacturers’ desire to increase profits, but to the need to compensate for increased costs.
“Bakers are forced to raise prices. This is not an attempt to make a profit, but an attempt to survive. When production costs rise and prices cannot be changed quickly, companies simply go into the red,” Taranenko emphasized.
The average daily room rate (ADR) in five-star hotels in Kyiv in euros in 2018 increased by 15% compared with 2017, to EUR 150 per day, while the occupancy rate was still 45-50%, Natalia Chystiakova, the director of the appraisal and consulting department at Colliers International (Ukraine), has said. “The Kyiv market is represented by more than 100 hotels with 10,500 rooms and serves 1 million visitors per year. In 2018 the market actually came to life for the first time after the situation of 2013-2014. There was an increase in ADR and occupancy … If next year the situation is stable, a further growth is planned,” she said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to the expert, for the whole year the ADR indicator in Kyiv hotels grew by 10% and is approaching the 2013 level. At the same time, in the segment of five-star hotels, the second year in a row shows a rather low occupancy rate of 45-50%, while ADR rose by 15%, to EUR 150 per day. At the same time, in the category of three- and four-star hotels, ADR did not grow over the year, but the occupancy rate increased by 5%.
According to a company press release, the average occupancy rate of four-star hotels in 2018 was 50-58%, three-star hotels some 55-65%. The room rates were EUR 80 in the four-star segment, and EUR 45 in three-star hotels.
The profitability of grain production in Ukraine in 2017 was 25% compared to 37.8% in 2016, the State Statistics Service has reported. According to its data, in addition, last year the profitability of production of sunflower seeds decreased to 41.3% from 63% in 2016, sugar beets to 12.4% from 24.3%, open ground vegetables to 15.6% from 19.7%, while potatoes grew to 10% (minus 3.2%).
At the same time, for the first time since 1995, production of meat became profitable: 3.4% against 24.8% in 2016. Profitability of pork production was 3.5% against minus 4.5%, poultry some 7% against 5% in 2016.
The profitability of mutton production last year declined and amounted to minus 39.6% against minus 35.2% in 2016, eggs accounted for minus 9% against 0.5% in 2016.
According to the agency, the profitability of milk production in 2017 increased to 26.9% from 18.2%.
