The corrugated cardboard box plant Dunapack Tavria (Oleshky, Kherson region) plans to launch another corrugated cardboard processing line with an annual capacity of 16-18 million square meters in August, Dunapack Tavria CEO Kostiantyn Turyhin said at a briefing at the plant on June 11. “Investment in the launch of this line in total with peripherals will be about EUR 2 million,” he said.
According to Turyhin, over the past three years, the demand for corrugated cardboard has increased by 3-7% per year.
At the same time, Dunapack-Tavria said that the waste paper market in Ukraine is very opaque, and the waste paper itself is not enough to ensure the need of Ukrainian enterprises.
As reported, according to the UkrPapir association, in January-April 2019, Dunapack-Tavria increased the production of cardboard boxes 22%, to 22.7 million square meters.
Austrian Dunapack Concern in 2013 opened the Dunapack-Tavria plant in Oleshky (Kherson region) for the production of corrugated packaging, investment in which amounted to EUR 38 million.
CORRUGATED CARDBOARD, DUNAPACK TAVRIA, INVEST, PROCESSING LINE
Baltic Beverages Invest AB (BBI, Sweden) has increased its stake in PrJSC Carlsberg Ukraine (Zaporizhia), one of the largest brewing companies in Ukraine, to 100%.
According to a company report in the information disclosure system of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, the squeeze-out procedure was completed on June 12, 2019. As reported, Baltic Beverages Invest planned to buy out 12.6 million shares of Carlsberg (1.2% of the number of its shares) for UAH 185 million.
Carlsberg Ukraine in 2018 saw net profit rise by 1.5 times compared with 2017, to UAH 1.634 billion. Carlsberg Ukraine is part of Carlsberg Group, one of the leading brewing groups in the world, whose products are sold in more than 150 countries. Carlsberg Group in Ukraine consists of three breweries in Zaporizhia, Kyiv, and Lviv.
U.S. Trident Acquisitions Corp., which submitted one of the four bids in a tender to develop the Dolphin section on the Black Sea shelf under a product sharing agreement (PSA), has said that the company is ready to invest $1 billion. “We proposed investment in the amount of $1 billion to Ukraine, the start of production in three and a half years if the reserves are discovered and the most experienced offshore fields development team,” Trident Acquisitions CEO, former Deputy of the State Duma of Russia Ilya Ponomarev, who became the Ukrainian citizen under a decree of Petro Poroshenko in May, wrote on his Facebook page.
“We see what rivals would say, we are keeping our fingers crossed and looking forward for [the results],” he said.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on April 12 announced a tender to develop the Dolphin Black Sea shelf section under the PSA. The term of the PSA is 50 years. The winner of the tender must provide a geological survey of the subsoil at the site, including the drilling of at least five wells during the first stage (five years) of geological exploration. The minimum investment that must be made in this period will be determined by the results of the tender, but must be at least UAH 1.5 billion.
The initiative to develop the Dolphin section belonged to another U.S. company, Frontera Resources Corporation, which also applied its bid for the tender.
Two other participants are Caspian Drilling International Ltd, a state-owned oil company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), and Ukrnaftoburinnia, one of the largest private gas producing companies in Ukraine.
Henkel Bautechnik (Ukraine) plans to invest around EUR 400,000 in the modernization of plants in Vyshgorod (Kyiv region) and Balakliya (Kharkiv region).
“The automatic line will be modernized at the plants in Vyshgorod and Balakliya from May of the current year, resulting in increased effectiveness and safety. The quality of product packaging will also improve. The amount of investment is about EUR 400,000,” Director General of Henkel Bautechnik (Ukraine) Olha Stupina told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to her, the company’s turnover in 2018 amounted to UAH 2 billion, forecasts for 2019 are positive, growth is expected. The company has significantly increased its financial performance compared to 2014, despite the loss of a quarter of the sales market.
“We estimate the results of last year as good. For the second time, Ukraine became the best company in the world in the Henkel adhesive division by consolidated financial indicators. I believe that in the conditions in which Ukraine is located relative to other countries of Europe and the world, this is a very big achievement,” Stupina said.
The total production capacity of the four factories of Henkel Bautechnik (Ukraine) is about 600,000 tonnes of products per year.
In the market of water-dispersion paints with a volume of about 150,000 tonnes, the share of Henkel Bautechnik (Ukraine) is about 17%, the press service of the company said.
Ukrtelecom will invest around UAH 270 million in the development of the high-speed fiber optic Internet network using GPON technology in almost 300 small towns and villages. Almost UAH 135 million was raised from Slovenia’s SID Bank, a promotional development and export bank.
“The start of construction of the fiber optic network is scheduled for the middle of May. The first connections to the new network will be already in July,” the operator said on Tuesday.
According to the report, the project is designed for two years and will be implemented jointly with the Iskratel telecommunications company. It provides for the construction of more than 3,500 km of fiber optic lines and subscriber access speeds of up to 200 Mbit per second, with the ability to use Internet telephony and interactive television. The partner company was selected based on the results of the tender for a comprehensive solution for the construction of the network, including construction and installation works, supply of equipment and startup works, the company said.
“The loan is secured by the insurance policy of SID bank to cover commercial and non-commercial risks. In this project, SID bank acts as an export credit agency,” Ukrtelecom said.
SALIC UK Ltd, the common investor in the merged business CFG/Mriya, plans to send over $50 million for boosting technical fleet in 2019.
“Now there is new equipment for $10 million. This year it is planned to send more than $50 million to the technical fleet,” Chief Integration Officer of the merged company CFG/Mriya Georg von Nolcken said during the presentation of the new technology on Friday.
CFG/Mriya recently received another batch of new agricultural equipment purchased in the production season 2019. In addition to the 17 units of trailed agricultural equipment purchased early March, the agricultural holding expanded its technical fleet with 13 370-hp and 18 240-hp Massey Ferguson tractors, 10 New Holland self-propelled sprayers and other tillage and special equipment worth $8.7 million
In general, since the beginning of the year, CFG/Mriya has expanded its technical fleet with 60 units of agricultural equipment worth $11 million, and in the near future, another 190 units are expected to be delivered.
For the harvesting campaign for the next few months, it is also planned to purchase combines, loaders and transport trailers.
Mriya Agro Holding is a vertically integrated agribusiness, which was founded by Ivan Huta in 1992. The holding’s land bank is 165,000 hectares. Its grain elevators are able to store 380,000 tonnes.
In August 2014, Mriya reported an overdue payment of about $9 million in interest income and about $120 million in repayment of debt on its obligations. The total debt to all financial creditors, taking into account the guarantees provided to the companies related to the Huta family, was about $1.3 billion at the time of the holding’s default.
In early February 2015, the operating control of the holding was transferred to creditors who elected the new management, and in September 2016 the committees of creditors and bondholders of the holding agreed on the conditions for the restructuring of the company’s debt, which was estimated at $1.1 billion. The debt restructuring ended in August 2018. Mriya’s total debt burden decreased from $1.1 billion to $309.5 million, which included $49.3 million in restructured secured debt, $208.1 million in restructured unsecured debt (eurobonds), $46 million in working capital, and $6.1 million in assets under a new leasing program for the purchase of equipment.
In September 2018, SALIC UK Limited announced the acquisition of the holding. The deal was completed in November 2018.
Mriya continues operations in Ukraine together with SALIC UK’s subsidiary, CFG.
The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) was founded in 2012. Its sole shareholder is the Sovereign Fund of Saudi Arabia. The company invests in the production of agricultural and livestock products.
CFG has been operating in Ukraine since 2006. It cultivates 45,000 hectares of land in Lviv and Ternopil regions.
