The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has relaxed the rules of buying foreign currency by nonresidents to return foreign investment abroad after transactions with government domestic loan bonds, the central bank has reported on its website. The respective initiative was approved by resolution No. 100 of the central bank’s board amending certain legal acts of the NBU dated September 18, 2018. The document came into force on September 20, with the exception of certain clauses, which will become effective on November 1, 2018. “Nonresidents for the purchase of foreign currency after operations with government bonds will need to submit the short list of documents as possible,” the NBU said in the report.
In particular, the resolution specifies the rules of settlements under operations with government domestic loan bonds, where a nonresident is a party: transactions with banks and nonresidents can be carried out without restrictions, operations with other counterparties can be carried out only on the stock exchange with settlements using the “delivery of securities against payment” principle.
In addition, the rules of servicing the operations on the government domestic loan bonds placement among the clients of primary dealers (broker contracts) are defined, which provides access to the primary government domestic loan bonds market for private investors.
The mechanism for servicing refinancing operations with a pool of assets as collateral has also been regulated. The procedure for conducting blocking operations for government domestic loan bonds under these transactions has been determined, and the NBU is given the opportunity to take into account the securities of banks that are deposited as collateral in favor of the central bank.
Ukragrocom and Hermes-Trading intend to complete the purchase of Inter-Contact-Agro LLC and Start (both based in Kirovohrad region) worth $5.6 million by May 30.
According to a report on the group’s website, the purchase of the companies is carried out within the framework of increasing the land bank to 120,000 hectares. Two agribusinesses manage more than 6,500 hectares of agricultural land in Kirovohrad and Odesa regions.
The group of the companies Ukragrocom and Hermes-Trading are part of an agricultural corporation specializing in production of grain and oilseeds, breeding pigs and cattle.
The group currently leases about 114,000 hectares of land, has five elevators with a total capacity of 353,000 tonnes of grain, a dairy farm, and a sugar plant.
Cattle stock at the farms is 6,000, pig numbers about 11,000 animals.
According to the unified state register of legal entities and individuals, the ultimate beneficiary of Inter-Contact-Agro and Start is the largest shareholder and the chairman of the board of directors of Kernel agricultural holding, Andriy Verevsky.
The revenue of Inter-Contact-Agro in 2017 decreased by 16.7%, to UAH 30.92 million, and net loss by four times, to UAH 4.28 million. Data for 2018 are not yet available.
