How has the full-scale war changed the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers?
According to the Opendatabot Index, almost half of the top 10 most successful Ukrainian wholesalers are businesses that trade in solid, liquid, gaseous fuels and similar products.
The top 10 of the Index in the wholesale trade sector includes Okko, WOG, West Petrol Market (fuel) and DTEK Trading, which trades in energy products. The list also includes businesses that sell tobacco (Tedis Ukraine and Philip Morris Sales and Distribution). Only two companies on the list sell food: MHP (meat) and Kernel Trade (grain). The Index also includes Optima Pharm and Metinvest-SMC. Together, these businesses earned UAH 458.95 billion last year.
For the second year in a row, Kernel Trade, a part of Andriy Verevsky’s Kernel Group, has been the unchanging leader in wholesale trade. In 2022, the company’s revenue amounted to UAH 67.92 billion, down 21% compared to 2021 (UAH 85.79 billion).
OKKO (Vitaliy Antonov, Universal Investment Group – UIG) moved up to the 2nd position in the ranking with revenue of UAH 67.29 billion. The company’s earnings grew 1.6 times year-on-year in 2022.
Tedis Ukraine, a tobacco company owned by Borys Kaufman, rounds out the top 3. Last year, the company increased its revenue by 7% and earned UAH 64.95 billion. It is worth noting that at the same time, the revenue of another company in the Index that specializes in tobacco wholesale, Philip Morris Sales and Distribution (the Ukrainian branch of the international tobacco manufacturer Phillip Morris International), decreased by 15% in 2022.
Yuriy Kosyuk’s MHP ranks fourth in the Index. This company specializes in the wholesale of meat and meat products. Its revenue in 2022 amounted to UAH 46.73 billion and remained almost unchanged compared to 2021 (UAH 46 billion).
Andriy Gubsky’s Optima Farm took fifth place in the list. In 2022, the company’s revenues decreased by 4% to UAH 44.34 billion.
DTEK Trading, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, saw the largest revenue increase – 1.8 times over the year. The company’s revenue of UAH 36.68 billion allowed it to rise from 18th place in the 2021 ranking to 7th in the 2022 ranking.
But another Akhmetov company in the top 10, Metinvest-SMC, saw its revenues decline by 42% (2021 – UAH 51.39 billion, 2022 – UAH 29.86 billion),
Who did the full-scale war push out of the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers?
It is worth noting that in 2022, the top 10 Ukrainian wholesalers underwent significant changes compared to 2021.
Last year, 2 companies specializing in energy trading dropped out of the list.
We are talking about United Energy, a company associated with Kolomoisky, which was the second largest earner in the country before the outbreak of full-scale war. Last year, United Energy earned 3.6 times less revenue than in 2021 (UAH 17.24 billion) and lost 19 rating points.
Chemical Trade (owned by Dmitry Firtash) also did not make it to the top. Having reduced its revenue by 1.4 times, the company dropped to the 12th position in the ranking.
Also, two businesses specializing in grain wholesale dropped out of the top ten:
– Nibulon (Andriy Vadatursky) and Nibulon (Andriy Vadatursky). The company’s revenues last year decreased 2.7 times by 2021, and a significant share of its facilities and equipment is still under occupation.
– ADM-Ukraine (a subsidiary of the international agro-industrial corporation Archer Daniels Midland Company): their revenue decreased by 1.5 times by 2021.
It is worth noting that the total revenue of the top 10 wholesale companies in 2022 decreased by 10% compared to the top 10 in 2021.
The OpenDataBot Index is an analytical tool for assessing the real situation and geography of Ukrainian business, based on data from state registers, OpenDataBot registers, financial statements of companies, information on relations with Russia, sanctions lists, and other analytical tools of OpenDataBot.
ADM-Ukraine, DTEK Trading, KERNEL-TRADE, Metinvest-SMC, MHP, NIBULON, OPTIMA-PHARM, Philip Morris Sales and Distribution, TEDIS UKRAINE, West Petrol Market, WOG, ОККО
Detectives of the Bureau of Economic Security of Ukraine (BES) initiated the seizure of more than 450 cars and vans one of the largest distributors of tobacco products in the country, property seized to ensure the compensation of damages of 270 million, caused to the state, the illegal activities of the company.
As reported on the Facebook page of the agency on Tuesday, officials of the said company in 2020-2021 documented the sale of tobacco products for a number of companies with signs of fictitiousness.
“The total value of excisable goods sold is 1.17 billion UAH. In fact, there was no sale of tobacco products to these companies. In fact the sales were made out of accounting for cash, including through a network of retail stores. Accordingly, the company did not reflect such business transactions in the company’s accounting and financial statements in order to conceal them,” the BEB report says.
The department underlined that by means of such transactions the tobacco products distributor intentionally avoided paying income tax and excise tax, which caused the actual non-payment of more than UAH 270 mln to the state budget.
In addition, the BEB found that the company owns more than 450 cars that were probably acquired illegally as a result of deliberate tax evasion and were used to transport the mentioned tobacco products.
“In order to preserve physical evidence and prevent unlawful acts with the vehicles, and to further ensure compensation for damages caused to the state, BEB detectives filed a motion to seize the distributor’s movable property, which the court granted,” the Bureau said in a statement.
Earlier, on January 16, the law enforcers informed that the general director of the largest tobacco products distributor in Ukraine is suspected of deliberate tax evasion without giving any other information about the distributor.
On the same day, the distribution company “Tedis Ukraine” said that it considers groundless and in no way legally unfounded suspicion of its general director Taras Korniyachenko in evasion of income tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH. Thus, “Tedis Ukraine” confirmed that the suspicion of the Office of the Prosecutor General was brought against it.
As reported, the Office of the Attorney General in January notified the CEO of the company – the largest distributor of tobacco products in suspicion of deliberate tax evasion. According to the prosecutor’s office, during 2020 and the first half of 2021, the company documented the sale of tobacco products to three companies with signs of fictitiousness in the total amount of 1.17 billion UAH, while the actual sale of products did not take place. Subsequently these companies with signs of fictitiousness in the tax records documented the sale of other goods – meat products and fuel.
Thus, the head of the tobacco company is accused of deliberate evasion of state budget profit tax and excise tax totaling more than 270 million UAH.
In turn, Tedis stated on its website that the criminal case initiated against its CEO concerns a number of business entities with which the company had financial and economic transactions in 2020. As part of the said case, the BEB requested documents from the company confirming financial and economic relations with counterparties, which Tedis provided.
“It should be noted that at the end of 2021, the Southern Department of the Office of large payers of the State Tax Service of Ukraine conducted a planned tax audit of the company’s compliance with tax and budget legislation for the period 2017-2020. Within the framework of the tax audit, there were no claims/comments on the relationship between the company and its counterparties, including those involved in the criminal case,” the distributor said in an official statement.
“Tedis Ukraine” is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies with a regional network of 32 structural units and about 45 thousand retail outlets. The company had 2,300 employees before the full-scale Russian invasion.
Tedis Ukraine company increased tax payments to the budgets of all levels by 5% in 2020, year-over-year, to UAH 1.4 billion.
The company’s press service told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday, UAH 612 million of deductions went to the central budget, while UAH 809 million to local budgets.
“During its ten-year history, our company has consistently been one of the largest taxpayers in Ukraine, and since its inception, Tedis Ukraine has transferred over UAH 10 billion to the country’s budget,” Director General of the company Taras Korniyachenko said.
According to Tedis Ukraine, in 2020, the company paid UAH 705 million of retail excise tax on the sale of tobacco products to local budgets, which allowed it to become the largest taxpayer in Ukraine.
As reported, Tedis Ukraine in February was the first to achieve in the Supreme Court the satisfaction of the cassation appeal against the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) and the invalidation of a fine of UAH 3.4 billion. The Supreme Court said it sustained the cassation due to the impossibility of bringing any person to justice on the basis of decisions of the AMCU in other cases (having no prejudicial significance), without obligatory proof of guilt in each individual case and taking into account the erroneous legal qualification of actions of Tedis Ukraine LLC.
Tedis Ukraine is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies. The company employs about 2,300 employees. The regional network consists of 32 structural divisions throughout the country. The company covers a retail network of about 45,000 retail points throughout Ukraine.
The Supreme Court has sided the cassation appeal of Tedis Ukraine against the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and invalidated the earlier decision of the committee to impose a fine of UAH 3.4 billion on the tobacco distributor.
“Today the Supreme Court put an end to the dispute between Tedis Ukraine and the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, which accused the company of allegedly committing anti-competitive concerted actions and imposed a fine of UAH 3.4 billion. This decision is final and not subject to appeal,” the company said in a press-release on Tuesday.
According to it, the Supreme Court overturned the decisions of the trial court and the court of appeals, made in favor of the committee.
“From the very beginning of this trial, we clearly understood that justice would be on our side and were able to prove it before the highest judicial body of the country,” the company said, quoting Director General Taras Korniyachenko as saying. According to him, the company has been working exclusively in the legal field throughout its ten-year history.
The Supreme Court said in a comment on Tuesday that it had verified the conclusions of the lower courts on the legality and validity of the impugned decision of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, given the statutory limits of authority, but not establishing the actual circumstances of the plaintiff’s behavior. Taking into account the impossibility of bringing any person to justice on the basis of decisions of the Antimonopoly Committee in other cases (without prejudice), without mandatory proof of guilt in each individual case (in each case) and taking into account the erroneous legal qualification of actions of Tedis Ukraine LLC, the Supreme Court upheld the lawsuit,” the court said in the statement.
At the same time, the Supreme Court said that the invalidation of the decision of the Antimonopoly Committee does not deprive this body of the right to conduct a re-inspection in compliance with the requirements of current legislation.
As reported, the committee in October 2019 imposed a fine of UAH 6.5 billion for anticompetitive concerted actions on four tobacco producers and Tedis Ukraine. Philip Morris International (PMI) at the end of last year filed a lawsuit with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID, Washington, DC, the United States) on bilateral investment arbitration against Ukraine in connection with an unfair, in their opinion, fine of the committee. British American Tobacco, which lost an appeal at the end of January, also announced such plans.
Tedis Ukraine is one of the largest Ukrainian distribution companies. The company employs about 2,300 employees. The regional network consists of 32 structural divisions throughout the country. The company covers a retail network of about 45,000 retail points throughout Ukraine.
