TAS Group is considering new acquisitions in the agricultural sector and would like to expand its land bank by another 20,000–25,000 hectares, said the group’s founder, Serhiy Tihipko.
“We are interested in agriculture. We would gladly acquire 20,000–25,000 hectares right now. We are strengthening our grain elevator operations,” he said at the Concorde Capital investment conference in Kyiv.
The agricultural sector remains one of the areas where the group sees potential for expansion. Earlier, Oleg Zapletnyuk, CEO of the TAS Agro agricultural holding, reported that the strategic plan calls for increasing the land bank from the current 80,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares by the end of 2026.
The next stage, he said, is to grow to 120,000 hectares by 2028.
Strengthening its grain storage infrastructure is important for the agricultural holding in terms of controlling logistics, storing the harvest, and ensuring sales flexibility. Given unstable export logistics and pressure on margins, having its own storage capacity is becoming one of the key factors in competitiveness.
The TAS Group is already active in the agricultural sector through TAS Agro. For the group, expanding its land bank and grain storage capacity could be a way to strengthen vertical integration and reduce dependence on external infrastructure.
agricultural sector, grain storage facility, LAND BANK, TIGIPKO, ТАСС
The TAS Group plans to invest $250–300 million in the authorized capital of banks, insurance companies, and other assets it holds in the financial sector, It also aims to expand its land bank and strengthen its grain storage operations in the agricultural sector, is actively investing in real estate development, and is exploring opportunities in logistics and port infrastructure, according to the group’s founder and head, Serhiy Tihipko.
“We are currently the largest private owner in the Ukrainian financial sector. And we are accelerating our pace here. Therefore, whether we want to or not, we will have to invest in authorized capital. “I think we’ll invest somewhere between $250 million and $300 million just to increase authorized capital,” said Tigipko at the Concorde Capital investment conference, which the investment firm held for the first time since 2019 last week in Kyiv.
“As for everything else, we’ll explore options. We’re interested in agriculture. We’d be happy to buy 20–25 thousand hectares right now. We’re expanding our grain storage facilities,” the founder added.
He noted that the group has now begun actively investing in real estate development.
“We’ve started a 220,000-square-meter project in Obolon. We’ve purchased an additional 5 hectares for the same project. In 2027, we’ll start a 350,000 (square meters) project on the Left Bank. These are fairly large investments,” the businessman clarified.
According to him, the group is also looking into logistics and port infrastructure, and Tigipko himself has personally visited Chornomorsk.
“I can say that I don’t really like the sector: in my opinion, it’s overvalued; everyone has gotten used to some kind of abnormal rate that existed at the start of the war. That won’t happen again,” the group’s owner noted.
He emphasized that the group constantly analyzes projects “every year, every day.”
“We’re sitting and waiting for a good, juicy deal to come along. We wanted to buy an insurance company (MetLife), but the Poles (PZU) beat us to it. That’s okay, we’ll wait. I told (Richard) Branson that deals are like a rail bus: one leaves, another will arrive. We’ll wait for the next one,” said Tihipko.
The TAS Group is one of the largest financial and industrial groups in Ukraine, operating in the banking sector, insurance, railcar manufacturing, metallurgy, logistics, the agricultural sector, the food industry, the production of packaging materials, and real estate. Among others, it includes TAScombank, Universal Bank (mono), and Idea Bank.
Oleg Zapletnyuk, CEO of the agricultural holding “TAS Agro,” reported earlier this year that the strategic plan calls for expanding the land bank from the current 80,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares by the end of 2026. “The next step is to increase it to 120,000 hectares, but that will be by 2028,” he said.
agricultural sector, DEVELOPMENT, financial sector, TAS, TIGIPKO
Dneprometiz-TAS LLC (Dnipro), owned by Ukrainian businessman Sergiy Tigipko, is selling a 72% stake in TAS Neil LLC (Khmelnytsky) to another Tigipko structure, TAS Asset Management LLC (Kyiv).
According to the company’s filing with the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC), the decision to grant consent to the company’s major transaction was made by the Supervisory Board (SB) of Dneprometiz-TAS LLC on February 6, 2025.
It is specified that the SB’s decision concerns the sale of corporate rights (share in the authorized capital) of TAS Neil LLC (Khmelnytskyi) in the amount of 72% with a nominal value of UAH 6 million 501,689 thousand to TAS Asset Management LLC (Kyiv), which has a license to carry out professional activities in the capital markets – asset management of institutional investors (asset management activities).
TAS Asset Management LLC acts on its own behalf, in the interests and at the expense of the Novy Venture Non-Diversified Closed-End Investment Fund of TAS Asset Management LLC.
The value of the stake (total amount of the agreement) is UAH 62 million. The buyer shall pay for the share within 5 months from the date of the agreement.
TAS NAIL LLC (Khmelnytsky) was registered on 26 April 1994. The main activity is the production of wire, chain and spring products.
Dneprometiz LLC owns 72% of TAS NAIL LLC, TAS Asset Management LLC (Novy Fund) owns 18% of the company, and TAS Asset Management LLC (Trademark Fund) owns 10%. The ultimate beneficiary is Sergiy Tigipko (100% share).
The authorized capital of TAS Oil LLC is UAH 9 million 30.123 thousand.
“Dneprometiz-TAS produces hardware products from low-carbon steels. The company’s capacity is 120 thousand tons of products per year.
It is owned by T.A.S. Overseas Investments Limited (Cyprus) owns 98.6578 percent of Dneprometiz LLC.
The authorized capital of Dneprometiz-TAS LLC is UAH 83.480 million.
The international venture fund TA Ventures is interested in investing in Web3 cryptocurrencies, as well as in fintech projects, including neobanks, said the founder of the fund, Victoria Tigipko, in an interview with the Business Breakfast project organized by Forbes in Kyiv.
“Investing in so-called crypto projects, Web3 projects – yes, I am interested in this. We are looking at projects that are related. These are platform solutions, these are projects that can be used globally,” she said, while noting that TA Ventures is already an investor in MoonPay, a fintech company specializing in cryptocurrency payment solutions, and Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange.
“We are interested in such projects on this scale,” Tigipko assured.
According to her, TA Ventures is also interested in fintech projects and has already invested in the neobank project of Dmytro Dubilet, one of the founders of Ukrainian monobank, Nick Bezkrovny, former head of M&A at KPMG, and Oleksandr Vityaz, a provider of cloud operating systems at Corezoid, called Fintech Farm.
“Why neobanks? In our understanding, the world of fintech is moving towards One-Stop-Shop (a “one-stop shop” is a business or service model that offers a full range of products or services to meet different customer needs in one place or on one platform)… That is why we focus on such products,” emphasized Tigipko.
According to her, Fintech Farm operates in Vietnam and Egypt. Launches in India, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are planned in the near future.
The founder of TA Ventures said that she will soon join the board of the global organization Endeavor, founded in 1997 by Linda Rottenberg and Peter Kellner. One of Endeavor’s goals is to transform emerging markets by finding and developing entrepreneurial talent.
“I will soon become an Endeavor board member. As a board member, I am investing in the Ukrainian Endeavor… For me, it is like paying tribute to the development of the Ukrainian startup business ecosystem,” she said.
TA Ventures International Fund was founded by Victoria Tigipko in 2010. It focuses on such technology sectors as mobility, digital healthcare, fintech, industrial technology, enterprise software, real estate technology, logistics, financial services, and IoT. The fund invests in early-stage technology startups focused on sectors such as HealthTech, FinTech, B2B Software and mobility solutions. The average investment amount is from $100 thousand to $500 thousand at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages.
Ms. Tigipko is also the founder of iClub, a private investment club for angel investors that provides its members with the opportunity to invest in promising startups and participate in major technology conferences.
The board of Polish Getin Holding and Serhiy Tigipko’s TAS Group signed a purchase and sale agreement for Idea Bank on Friday, with the base amount of the deal amounting to $34 million, according to a press release from the group on Friday and a stock exchange announcement from the holding.
According to the statement, the buyer of 100% of the shares is Alkemi Limited (Cyprus), a member of the TAS group, and the transaction is subject to the approval of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine and the National Bank of Ukraine, and is governed by English law and the requirements of the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
Idea Bank Ukraine operates in the retail banking segment and focuses on servicing individuals. The bank’s main products are cash loans, credit cards, deposits, current accounts and debit cards. As of August 1, 2024, total assets of Idea Bank amounted to UAH 11.72 billion, ranking it 27th among 62 Ukrainian banks. Its equity capital as of that date amounted to UAH 1.74 billion, and net profit for the first seven months of this year was UAH 417.3 million.
TAS Group is one of the largest financial and industrial groups in Ukraine, which is represented in banking, insurance, railcar building, metallurgy, packaging materials, logistics, agriculture, food industry and real estate.
The group owns Universal Bank and TAScombank with assets of UAH 134.34 billion and UAH 36.62 billion, respectively, ranking 9th and 16th in the market by this indicator. The agreement stipulates that if the closing date is later than December 31, 2024, Alkemi Limited will pay Getin Holding an additional $0.8 million for each full calendar month starting from January 2025.
Idea Bank (formerly Plus Bank) was founded in 1989. In June 2020, the deal to sell Idea Bank to Ivan Svitek, former CEO of Alfa-Bank (Kyiv), and Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital was terminated: the parties failed to agree on its commercial terms within the timeframe set by the agreement. Later, Dragon Capital and Svitek managed to buy Unex Bank from Vadym Novynskyi’s Smart Holding before the war.
In late February 2022, Getin Holding announced that it had failed to sell Idea Bank for the second time. The agreement on the terms of sale of its 100% stake to Rinat Akhmetov’s First Ukrainian International Bank (FUIB, Kyiv), signed on November 10, 2021, was terminated due to the failure to meet all the conditions for the transfer of ownership by February 25. Following the termination of the agreement with FUIB, Getin Holding abandoned its plans to sell its Ukrainian subsidiary amid Russia’s ongoing military aggression against Ukraine.
On March 27, 2023, the National Bank of Ukraine recognized the business reputation of both the Polish holding and its main owner, Czarnecki, as impeccable. In this regard, the Ukrainian regulator temporarily deprived Getin Holding of the right to vote on 100% of Idea Bank’s shares and set a one-year deadline for the holding and its main owner Leszek Czarnecki to eliminate the violation, and a year later refused to return the voting rights to the holding. In addition, the NBU approved Jacek Piechota, President of the Polish-Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce, as a trustee of Idea Bank.
In Poland, as a result of the decisions of the Bank Guarantee Fund, the Polish Idea Bank became part of Pekao Bank, while Getin Noble Bank was also put into rehabilitation, changed its name to VeloBank and was sold to the American fund Cerberus Capital Management LP at the end of March this year.
At the end of April this year, the NBU gave Getin Holding six months to sell its 100% stake in the authorized capital of Idea Bank. In addition, a similar demand was made of Mr. Charnetsky, who was required by the NBU to sell 44.98% of Idea Bank to Getin Holding within six months, offering as an alternative to sell Charnetsky’s stake in Getin Holding or LC Corp BV, which belongs to him, to LC Corp BV, which owns 34.17% of Getin Holding.
Carriage-building enterprise Dneprovagonmash JSC (DVM) plans to sell up to 100 railcars for export to Europe, businessman Serhiy Tihipko said.
“Today we produce 80 railcars per month for the domestic market, but we have already started to make and for export… The European market is 8-9 thousand railcars per year, we have set a goal of 100 railcars per month to sell there. In money, the average car is about EUR100 thousand,” he said during the forum ‘Money for Victory’ organized by Forbes Ukraine.
According to him, Austrian metallurgical company voestalpine provides lighter and stronger metal for construction of railcars, which is a competitive advantage in the European market.
In turn, the group will invest in the modernization of the plant (metal work, welding, painting) and staff training.
As reported, in early 2023, TAS Group became a strategic investor in TransAnt GmbH, a wagon-building JV of Austrian voestalpine and ÖBB Rail Cargo, with a 40% stake, and in spring 2024 became a majority shareholder of TransAnt, increasing its stake to 61%.
In October 2023, as part of an innovative project with Austrian partners, Dneprovagonmash, a member of the TAS group, shipped the first lightweight modular freight cars (MultiBOX) for operation on EU railroads, and by the end of the year it already had a full line of platform freight cars for the EU market.
According to information in TAS Dneprovagonmash’s financial statement for 2023, this year it plans to invest UAH 100.2 million in the development of the European direction, in particular for the purchase of equipment.
The company in 2023 produced 378 freight cars (including for the EU market), which is 34.8% less than in 2022, sales decreased by 40.6% to 370 units.
Net income from sales of railcars and other products decreased by 2.8% to UAH 1 bln 77 mln, net profit increased insignificantly to UAH 49.2 mln.
TAS Group was founded in 1998 by businessman Tigipko. Its business interests cover the financial sector (banking and insurance segments) and pharmacy sector, as well as industry, real estate, and venture projects.
