The State Property Fund (SPF) during an auction held on Wednesday sold the First Kyiv Machine-Building Plant JSC (previously the Bilshovyk plant) for UAH 1.429 billion. The auction, which lasted about 10 minutes, was held in one round, during which participant 3 offered a price of UAH 1.409 billion, and participant 1, which was General Commerce LLC, offered UAH 1.429 billion.
The price grew by UAH 40 million. Participant 2 was Invest Novatsiia LLC, participant 3 was Developing Company Kaskad LLC.
General Commerce LLC was registered in Kyiv in 2018, the charter capital is UAH 4,100. Its head is Ihor Khyzhniak.
The ultimate beneficiary of the company, Volodymyr Dovhopolov, is also the founder with a share of 9.99% via UDP Asset Management.
As Head of the State Property Fund Dmytro Sennychenko said, after the auction, the procedure provides for 10 days to sign the contract, 30 days to pay the specified amount, as well as the approval of the Antimonopoly Committee.
As reported, the starting price of the plant was set at UAH 1.39 billion. According to the privatization conditions, the new owner shall pay off the debts of the plant to employees, the state budget and other creditors (now the debts are more than UAH 500 million), implement the current collective agreement and prevent dismissal within a certain period.
In addition, the buyer needs to invest at least UAH 57 million in the modernization of the enterprise over three years, to retain a part of the production that has potential at the site in Kyiv or Zhashkiv, or other production facilities in Ukraine.
JSC First Kyiv Machine-Building Plant (the former Bilshovyk plant) will be put up for a privatization auction with a starting price of UAH 1.39 billion, which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday, Dmytro Sennychenko, head of the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine, said. “Today, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has accepted the terms of its privatization. As they say, now a small [not so] challenge remains to find, together with a representative of Big-4, KPMG Ukraine, investors for this asset,” he said on Facebook on Wednesday evening.
According to Sennychenko, the commission will determine the date of the auction in the near future.
“The experience of previous competitions held by the SPF allows us to confidently predict that we will see a significantly larger number on the final scoreboard,” the SPF head said.
He recalled that the plant was established in 1881, when a Swiss entrepreneur bought about 4.4 hectares of land on Shuliavka in Kyiv, and six months later a new enterprise appeared here – Kyiv iron cast and mechanical plant.
“Over the next more than a hundred years, the plant changed the scale of production, profile, name, and experienced stunning transformations – from an unconditional flagship of the industry to an abandoned technically obsolete site,” Sennychenko wrote, adding that perhaps the enterprise will again interest some Swiss investor.
As reported, in accordance with the privatization conditions approved by the Cabinet of Ministers, the new owner of the enterprise must fulfill a number of social and economic conditions, in particular, the payment of wage arrears and single social security tax, the implementation of the current collective agreement and the prevention of dismissal within a certain period.
