Business news from Ukraine

INTERNATIONAL PIPE AND WHEEL COMPANY INTERPIPE RECEIVES $ 216 MLN IN EBITDA IN JAN-SEPT

Interpipe, the international vertically integrated pipe and wheel company, in January-September 2020 received $ 216.394 million in EBITDA, which is 8% more than in the same period last year.
According to a press release of the company, based on the unaudited IFRS consolidated financial statements for the nine months of 2020, in January-September revenue fell by 23%, to $ 660 million, capital investments by 34%, to $ 27 million.
The press release emphasizes that the company’s net debt has reached a de-minimis level of $ 12 million with a net leverage ratio (net debt to EBITDA) that has dropped to almost zero (0.05x).
In the third quarter of 2020, the company’s revenue decreased by 12% compared to the previous quarter, to $ 192 million, EBITDA increased by 7%, to $ 67 million, the amount of capital investments increased by 12%, to $ 9 million.
“In Q3 2020 Interpipe operated in a quite challenging environment across all markets. The COVID-19 pandemic as well as oil and gas prices downturn led to the global decline in demand for pipes, particularly, OCTG products. Moreover, lockdowns and reduction of freight turnover hit global railway wheel market,” the report says.
“In the first nine months of 2020, Interpipe’s overall revenue declined by 23% y-o-y to $ 660 million primarily due to a decline in pipe sales volumes and prices. Revenue from pipes shrank by 35% y-o-y to $ 349 million whereas the railway product revenue decreased by 6% y-o-y to $ 216 million,” according to the document.
“Nevertheless, Interpipe managed to achieve а sound nine-month 2020 EBITDA which amounted to $ 216 million, up by 8% y-o-y. On the back of the COVID-19 pandemic and reinstatement of the anti-dumping duty in the Customs Union the railway product segment was the main contributor to the EBITDA growth: its pass-through EBITDA went up by 24% y-o-y to $ 161 million and comprised 75% of the total EBITDA for the nine months of 2020,” it said.
“At the same time, the pipe segment EBITDA for the first nine months of 2020 drastically dropped by 79% y-o-y to $ 10 million despite stable sales of linepipes and some recovery of OCTG in Q3 2020,” it said.
“As of September 30, 2020, gross debt went down substantially to $ 122 million following the partial redemption of the notes in amount of $ 97 million in August 2020. In addition, net debt achieved an unprecedently low level of $ 12 million bringing down consolidated net leverage ratio (net debt to EBITDA) almost to zero (0.05x),” the report says.
“Despite extremely harsh business environment in Q3 and the first nine months of 2020 Interpipe kept showing a solid financial performance. The company retrieved its full financial stability and flexibility having achieved effectively a zero net leverage. Our progress and substantially improved credit profile have been also appreciated and confirmed by international credit rating agencies – Fitch Ratings and S&P Global – assigning to Interpipe ‘B’ rating with stable outlook,” CEO at Interpipe Fadi Hraibi commented on the results.

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UKRAINIAN BUSINESS OF DANISH PIG-BREEDING COMPANY GOODVALLEY INCREASES EBITDA IN UKRAINE BY 81%

The Ukrainian business of the Danish pig-breeding company Goodvalley, which assets are also located in Poland and Russia (formerly Danosha), in January-September 2020 saw EBITDA of DKK 125 million, which is 81.2% better than this indicator in January-September 2019.
Adjusted EBITDA rose by 76.5% to DKK 120 million, while revenues grew by 10.6%, to DKK 343 million, according to the company’s report last week.
The company said that in the third quarter of this year compared to the third quarter of last year, it managed to increase EBITDA 2.4 times, to DKK 34 million, adjusted EBITDA – by 80%, to DKK 27 million, but its revenue decreased 6.5%, to DKK 129 million.
According to the report, sales of pigs in live weight in the third quarter were stable, having decreased by 1.8% compared to the third quarter of last year, to 10,700 tonnes. The average realized price per kilogram decreased by 14.4% over the year as a result of the fall in the exchange rate, to DKK 11.37 from DKK 13.28.
Goodvalley clarified that 77% of the revenue of the Ukrainian segment came from sales of live pigs, and 23% from sales of grain crops and energy.
The share of the Ukrainian segment in the total revenue of the group was 34%, the Polish – 55%, the Russian – 11%, while the adjusted EBITDA was higher – 44% compared to 27% from the Polish business and 29% from the Russian one.
According to the report, in January-September of 2020, sales of pigs in live weight in the Ukrainian segment grew by 11.2% to 31,700 tonnes.
In general, Goodvalley’s revenue in the first nine months of this year increased 0.8%, to DKK 1130 million, EBITDA 6.7%, to DKK 224 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 39.5%, to DKK 258 million.
In the third quarter of this year, the company’s revenue decreased 8.5%, to DKK 379 million, EBITDA 47.6%, to DKK 33 million, and adjusted EBITDA 18.3%, to DKK 58 million.
Goodvalley ended the first nine months of this year with a net loss of DKK 11 million versus DKK 120 million in net income in the first nine of last year, but adjusted profit rose 3.7 times, to DKK 95 million.
In the third quarter, the net loss amounted to DKK 50 million versus the net profit of DKK 26 million in the third quarter of last year, and the adjusted net profit fell by 83.3%, to DKK 3 million.
Goodvalley is engaged in pig farming in Ukraine, Poland and Russia. The group is also engaged in crop production, production of compound feed, biogas and electricity. It includes 34 farms and nine biogas plants. Goodvalley has a land bank of 38,300 hectares.
Goodvalley in 2019 increased its net profit to DKK 188 million from DKK 22 million in 2018. The company’s revenue rose 3.6% last year, to DKK 1.53 billion.

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KYIVSTAR INCREASES EBITDA BY 17%

The mobile network operator Kyivstar has increased its total income by 11.6% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, to UAH 6.502 billion, the company’s press service said with reference to its quarterly report on Thursday.
According to the report, in the specified period, Kyivstar increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 16.9%, to UAH 4.411 billion, thereby increasing EBITDA margin by 3.1 percentage points (pp), to 67.8%.
Revenue from mobile services of the operator in the third quarter amounted to UAH 6.065 billion, which is 11% higher than in the same period in 2019.
Data traffic consumption increased by 50%, to 5.953 GB per subscriber. Consumption of voice services also increased – by 9.7% to 621 minutes per subscriber.
The number of Kyivstar mobile Internet users grew by 3.4%, to 16.8 million, and the total number of active subscribers by the end of the third quarter amounted to 25.8 million, which is 2.2% less than a year earlier.
The operator explained the decrease in the subscriber base relative to the third quarter of 2019 by the partial suspension of the retail network during quarantine.
According to the company, average revenue per user (ARPU) for mobile communications rose by 14.5%, to UAH 78.
“Forced social distancing during the quarantine period influenced the growth in demand for digital solutions. So, in the third quarter of 2020, the number of users of the My Kyivstar self-service system increased by 52% compared to the third quarter of 2019,” the operator said.
Revenues from fixed-line services grew by 19.9%, to UAH 399 million. At the same time, the number of subscribers increased 10%, to 1.1 million ARPU of fixed-line internet increased 9.7%, to UAH 81.
Capital investments for the reporting period amounted to UAH 1.185 billion, which is 13.5% less than in the same period last year.
In general, in January-September 2020, Kyivstar increased its revenue by 11.4%, to UAH 18.641 billion and EBITDA – by 17.6%, to UAH 12.527 billion, while the EBITDA margin increased by 3.6 pp, to 67.9%.
The operator’s capital investments (excluding license costs) for the first nine months of 2020 grew by 22.7%, to UAH 4.299 billion.

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UKRTELECOM RAISES EBITDA BY 10.8%

The EBITDA of Ukrtelecom (Kyiv) in January-June 2019 exceeded UAH 919 million, which is 10.8% more than a year ago, the largest Ukrainian fixed-line telephony operator has said.
According to the report, for the reporting period the total income of Ukrtelecom remained stable at the level of almost UAH 3.3 billion against UAH 3.249 billion for the same period last year, in particular income from telecommunications services amounted to UAH 2.755 billion.
Ukrtelecom notes that in January-June of this year it managed to increase revenue from Internet services by 8.2%, to more than UAH 880 million by continuing to deploy optics (plus 1,400 km since the beginning of the year) and connecting territorial communities to the Internet.
The company said that in the business segment, sales of Internet services increased by 8.6%, to UAH 184 million, and among private users by 8.1%, to UAH 698 million. According to the report, today the company offers Internet services in almost 2,300 locations in Ukraine.
Ukrtelecom said in the second quarter it launched a large project on laying more than 3,500 km of fiber-optic lines to provide nearly 300 small towns and villages with optical Internet.
Compared to the first half of 2018, revenues from fixed telephony decreased in the mass segment by 6.5%, in the corporate segment by 1.6%, and in general amounted to almost UAH 1.385 billion, which corresponds to the similar trend of decreasing voice services revenues from mobile operators.

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UKRTELECOM INCREASES EBITDA BY 11% IN Q1, 2019

PJSC Ukrtelecom in January-March 2019 increased EBITDA by 11% compared to the same period in 2018, to UAH 427 million, director general of the operator Yuriy Kurmaz has said at a press conference in Kyiv.
According to him, EBITDA margin for this period increased by 2 percentage points, to 26%.
Net income for the reporting period rose by 3%, to UAH 1.665 billion.
Kurmaz added that income from telecommunication services in the first quarter of the current year decreased by 1.4% compared to the first quarter of 2018, to UAH 1.416 billion.
In January-March, the operator provided services to private subscribers for more than UAH 922 million, business users for UAH 348 million.
At the same time, Kurmaz refused to voice the net financial result for the first quarter.
“I think it is inappropriate to talk about net profit for the first quarter, given the fact that from January 1 of this year a number of financial reporting standards have changed significantly, significantly influencing net profit. At the same time, I’d like to note that in the first quarter we achieved substantial profit,” he said.

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VEGA TELECOMS OPERATOR SEES EBITDA RISE BY 43%

Vega, the largest Ukrainian telecoms operator, in January-September 2018 saw EBITDA rise by 43%, to UAH 127 million, the company’s net income amounted to UAH 469 million, which is 4% more than in the same period of 2017.
At the same time, the company did not provide information on the company’s net profit/loss for the first half of the year.
According to the operator’s press release, the positive dynamics of the company’s revenues is related to the growth in revenues from the provision of services by fiber-optic channels and from IP services. The revenue in the key business sector of the company is also constantly growing.
In the first nine months of this year, Vega invested UAH 60 million in the development of its own networks and modernization against UAH 66.8 million in the nine months of 2017.
The company also noted that the share of IP telephony clients (VoIP) in the B2B base of subscribers of telephony services increased by 21% compared to the same period last year.
At the same time, the average revenue per user (ARPU) for the above mentioned period rose by 18.4% due to the growing share of the business segment in the subscriber base and the increasing popularity of high yield products.
The volume of taxes and fees the company paid to the budgets of various levels in January-September amounted to UAH 104 million, which is 20% more than last year.

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