The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) allowed Tikrait LLC (Kiev) to privatize Zhovtnevyi distillery (Karlovka, Poltava region), which is part of state enterprise Ukrspirt, for 85 million and 1 UAH.
The relevant decision of March 2, 2023 is reported on the AMCU website on Friday.
According to the Unified State Register of legal entities and natural persons-entrepreneurs, the ultimate beneficiary of “Tikrait” with a share capital of 25 thousand UAH is Alexander Nazarenko. The company is engaged in activities in the field of law, consulting on business matters and activities in the field of real estate agencies. Earlier the company had no experience in privatization of alcohol assets in Ukraine.
According to the State Property Fund (SPF), the auction for the privatization of Zhovtnevyi distillery was held on December 7, 2022. The main activity of the company is the production of organic chemicals.
SPF specified that the asset consists of 93 buildings and structures with a total area of 13.5 thousand square meters. m. It includes production and administrative buildings, a distillery, granaries, cooling towers, a carpenter’s workshop, a sawmill, a chalk-and-oil station, a treacle station, alcohol storages, hangars, pumping stations, livestock farms, 23 vehicles and 506 pieces of equipment. The distillery is equipped with all necessary technological equipment and communications.
The company has seven land plots in Karlivka with a total area of 90.2 hectares, which belong to the state enterprise on the right of permanent use.
According to the SPF, Ukrspirt received UAH 58 million in revenue in 2020, UAH 162 million in 2021, and UAH 158 million in the first nine months of 2022.
As reported, the Office of the Prosecutor General in August 2021 announced the suspicion of the acting director of Zhovtnevyi distillery in evasion of excise tax in the manufacture of diluent and disinfectants in August 2020 for a total of about 182 million UAH.
The State Property Fund plans in 2023 to complete the full privatization of the alcohol industry, for which it will hold online auctions for the sale of 26 distilleries across the country.
In general, for 2.5 years, Ukraine has already held 39 successful auctions for the sale of distilleries, which added more than 2 billion UAH to the country’s budget. In particular, between September and December 2022, the SPF held 12 such auctions. The winning bidders offered more than 849 million hryvnias for these objects, which exceeded their aggregate starting price by three times. Thus, distilleries became one of the most popular destinations for investment in state property last year.
