Investments

Wednesday, June 16

This summer, Ukrzaliznytsia plans to lease out 41,000 square meters of commercial space in the nation’s 24 busiest passenger stations , Ivan Yuryk, acting CEO of the state railroad, told reporters yesterday at a government development forum. These leases could bring in $4 million a year to the money-losing railroad. At the end of th...

In a second step, the nation’s 11 busiest stations are being prepared for long-term lease under concession contracts with strategic investors . Already six foreign and domestic investors have shown interest in the concessions, scheduled to start in 2023. “What do we see at the exit?” asked Yuryk. “Citizens and guests of our country, arrivin...

The Finance Ministry raised almost $300 million – in hryvnia and euros – in its weekly bond auction yesterday , the Ministry reports on Facebook. With yields little changed, sales totaled slightly less than half the amount sold last week. For hryvnia bonds, yields ranged from 10.97% for 1-year bonds, to 12.59...

Attracted by high interest rates, international investors increased their investment in Ukrainian government bonds by $377 million this month, prompting the central bank to buy $415 million. Despite the purchases, Ukraine’s currency s...

Ukrainians received about $400 million in profit from bitcoin investments, ranking 10th highest in the world, according to the Digital Transformation Ministry, citing a study by Chainanalysis. The top three were: US – $4.1 billion; China – $1.1 billion; and Japan – $900 million. Six months a...

Tuesday, June 15

Ukravtodor, the state highway agency, plans to issue its first dollar Eurobonds under a sovereign guarantee , reports Interfax-Ukraine. Local and international banks including JP Morgan, Dragon Capital and Ukreximbank are arranging the placement. Calls to investors start today for the bonds, which have tenu...

International investors have spent more than $315 million buying Ukraine’s government bonds last week, the largest amount in almost two years. ICU writes of last week’s auction: “It appears that foreigners purchased more than half of last week’s issuance in local currency.” Foreigners now hold ov...

Monday, June 14

SoftServe, the IT company based in Lviv and Austin, Texas, will build a high tech ‘campus’ on an extensive 13-hectare site of a former prison in a southern part of Lviv city . SoftServe, a global outsourcing giant with 9,000 employees, outbid six other companies last week, paying $14 million – almost triple the starting auction price.

Oleg Denys, co-founder of SoftServe said of the former prison site: “The idea is to create a neighborhood where you can collect talents and have all the conditions for the development of these talents in the city, have futuristic offices, educational institutions.”...

The successful online auction of Lviv Correctional Colony № 48 is to be the first privatization of 35 shuttered prisons put up for sale in a program started this year. Two prison sales – one in Odesa and one in Irpin, a northern suburb of Kyiv – failed due to a lack of bidders. Justice Minister Denys Mayluska hopes the Lviv sale will generate investor interest. A se...

Friday, June 11

Italy-Ukraine trade increased by 39% during the first five months of 2021 to $2.1 billion , Prime Minister Shmygal said. Italy’s export credit agency After a 6-year break, Italy’s export credit agency, SACE, recently resumed lending to Italian companies under contracts with Ukrainian compa...

Thursday, June 10

The Finance Ministry’s weekly auction raised $700 million in hryvnia and equivalent, 20% more than last week’s auction . Hryvnia rates were virtually unchanged Tuesday: 6 months – 9%; 14 months – 11.2%; 18 months – 11.3%; 2-year – 12.05%; and 3-year – 12.3% per annum. The novelty was a 5-...

International buyers are back in the market, ICU has reported. “Last week foreign investors purchased UAH 2bn [$74 million] of new bills in addition to reinvesting funds they received from redemptions,” the investment group wrote of last week’s ...

Two years after Ukraine started to cooperate with Clearstream, external investment in government bonds has doubled, the share of public debt in national currency has increased to 39%, and 5-year bonds have won acceptance, the Finance Ministry reports. In a press conference last week with representatives of the Luxe...

Although down 24% from the February 2020 peak, this current investment accounts for almost 10% of the bonds in circulation. Ministry officials say that foreign investment contributed to the sharp decrease in weighted average yield on hryvnia bonds...

16 business centers will open in Kyiv, with a total area of 376,000 square meters by the end of next year , Radomyr Tsurkan, managing partner of CBRE Ukraine, predicted last week in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine. “The collapse of the offices that scared everyone at the start of the pandemic did not t...

Wednesday, June 9

Metinvest plans to build a $1 billion modern cold rolling mill at its Ilyich Metallurgical Plant in Mariupol, Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the company CEO announced to Ukraine 24 TV yesterday. He said: “Literally next week we will sign a contract for the construction of a new cold rolling mill. This is already a billion ...

President Zelenskiy plans to spend $9 billion during the three remaining years of his term to rebuild and repair 43,000 km of national roads and 119,000 km of local roads , reports the Finance Ministry. The expenditure in critical infrastructure is included in the Budget Declaration for 2022-2024, which was approved last week by the Cabinet of Ministers. Denis Ulyutin,...

To speed construction of Kyiv’s 150 km Bypass Road, the Rada passed a bill exempting the $3.2 billion project from ProZorro procurement and public tenders , Max Nefyodov, a Kyiv City Councilman and former deputy Economy Minister, charges in an Atlantic Council blog. Under the headline “Ukraine’s post-2014 public procurement progress is under threat,” Ne...

Defending the measure, Serhiy Bykov writes on Facebook: “Current procurement rules close the opportunities for international players to enter the market, which can immediately bring money.” The new, streamlined approach, he...

International development banks are lending a total $130 million to two Ukrainian state banks which will provide finance for small and medium enterprises . The EBRD yesterday approved a loan of up to €25 million to ‘green-focused’ projects of SMEs. The World Bank is lending $100 million to Ukreximbank for it finance program supporting export oriented S...

Tuesday, June 8

In Odesa alone, the government is spending $92 million this year in a crash effort to restore irrigation . If the Rada passes the irrigation bill, Leshchenko tells the Kyiv Post he expects the EBRD and the World Bank to loan Ukraine $2 billion to rebuild its irrigation systems.

Investing in a timber industry for future generations, President Zelenskiy announced yesterday at a national ecology forum a goal to plant 1 billion trees over the three years remaining in his term . Recently, Ukrainians carried out a national campaign, planting 1 million trees in 24 hours. To plant 1 billion trees, it would be necessary to plant 1 million trees every day for three years. On a m...

Monday, June 7

Smart Energy plans to invest $400 million in gas production over the next decade , Serhiy Hlazuno, group CEO told reporters Friday. During this time, the group plans to drill 30 wells. At present, it has 29 operating wells. Last year, Smart Energy increased its natural gas product...

Wednesday, June 2

Metinvest, Ukraine’s largest private company saw its EBITDA increase almost four times in the first quarter yoy, to nearly $1.5 billion . Rising high iron and steel prices, saw revenues in the vertically integrated steel company increase by 43% yoy, to $3.6 billion. In a sign that the world recovery is spreading beyond China, sales to...

The EU and its European Investment Bank are investing €460 million to repair damaged infrastructure in Donetsk and Luhansk, reports Jean-Erik de Zagon, the bank’s resident representation in Ukraine. A first tranche of €120 million will be used to repair 168 buildings – largely schools, kindergartens, libraries, culture hou...

In Donetsk, the state highway agency is rebuilding 12 bridges and the access road to the front line city of Avdiivka. In a multi-year project, Ukravtodor is rebuilding this summer the 625 km stretch of the M-14 between Odesa and Mariupol. This east-west road links the ports of the Azov and Black Seas, giving exporter...

Tuesday, June 1

UDP developers are moving ahead with three ‘IT cities’ – in Lviv, Kharkiv and Kyiv, said the company vice president, Vitaliy Melnyk. In September, the company will open its 18,000 square meter ‘business campus’ at LvivTech.City. With a total planned buildout of 110,000 square meters,...

UNIT.City Kharkiv is to be twice as big, with 250,000 square meters of space, Melnyk told the press office of UFuture, the parent company. On this 9-hectare site, 3,000 square meters of school and office premises have opened.

At Kyiv’s UNIT.City, 100,000 square meters of office and residential space are under construction or completed . In coming weeks, Japanese-Dutch architect Hiroki Matsuura plans to open his Main Plaza, a 5,500 square meter central square for UNIT.City.

Ukraine made it first payment – $41 million – for GDP warrants issued as part of the public debt restructuring in 2015. The trigger for yesterday’s repayment was Ukraine’s GDP growth of 3.2% in 2019. Last summer, seeing the 3% barrier falling, the Finance Ministry bought back $330 million of the warrants, about 11% of ...

Winner Group, the US-owner car importer, has been awarded a €20 million loan from the EBRD to move into electric vehicles and to build Renault and Volvo dealerships. The low interest loan comes on the heels of Winner adding MG last month to ...

Monday, May 31

DTEK’s Tiligulska wind power project, with a capacity of 126 MW, is under construction this summer and should produce power next year , DTEK reports. Located in southwest Mykolaiv, the project is largely financed with money from a green Eurobond that DTEK issued in the fall of 2019. If the government catches up with overdue payments...

Friday, May 28

Apartment prices in Kyiv could nearly double – to $2,000 per square meter — by the end of 2023, predicts Serhiy Pylypenko, general director of Kovalska construction and construction materials company. Driving prices up 15-20% this year will be the rising cost of building materials, he told the C...

Budhouse Group, one of Ukraine’s largest developers, plans to invest €314 million in three projects over the next three years, Anatoliy Shkribliak, company founder and shareholder, tells Interfax-Ukraine. In Odesa, the group is spending €12 million to complete work on Yessa shopping and entertainment center, aiming for openin...

To promote private investment in Ukraine’s sea ports, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority plans to focus on dredging and allow companies build and maintain berths through concessions. With each berth costing $20-50 million to build, the state-owned authority does not have the capital to meet demand, Andriy Gaydutsky, chair of the Authority’s supervisory board, told the Ukrainian Po...

Thursday, May 27

Dragon Capital is expanding its media holdings acquiring Ukrainska Pravda, the 21-year-old news site. Dragon already owns NV, a leading business news site. “Same as with our existing media project, NV, we will maintain the practice of non-interference by th...

Dragon increased its Kyiv warehouse holdings by 50% last week by buying a 100,208 square meter office and logistics complex in Bilogorogoda, six km from the Kyiv ring road, between the Odesa and Zhytomyr highways. With the purchase of Amtel Logistics Complex, Dr...

The European Investment Bank is providing an additional €7 million grant to top up last year’s €340 million program to rebuild infrastructure in eastern Ukraine. Designed to benefit almost 14 million people, the program focuses on hospitals, schools, sewage systems and transport. The new funding was announced yesterday by the Ministry of Community and Territor...

Two regional entrepreneurs – Andriy Stavnitser, co-owner of the TiS port in Yuzhny, and Yuriy Fylyuk, who is recycling a massive Soviet-era gas meter factory in Ivano-Frankivsk – are profiled by Melinda Haring in a National Interest story headlined: “Ukraine’s Future in Being Made Outside Kyiv.” Her conclusion: “The big picture in Ukraine, viewed solely from Kyiv, often look...

Wednesday, May 26

The Finance Ministry raised $217 million in hryvnia at yesterday’s bond auction, less than half the amount raised last week. In the auction for five bonds, yields were virtually unchanged, the Ministry reported on Facebook. The biggest sellers were 1-year bonds, at 11.2%, and 3-year bonds, at 12.3%.

Monday, May 24

By turning Kyiv’s central rail station over to private operators through a concession agreement, the station could attract $100 million in investment, Vladyslav Krikliy said in an interview given to the Kyiv Post before he stepped down last week as Infrastructure Minister. Looking at station candidates for concessions — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, ...

The government hopes to increase foreign investment from $420 million last year, to $3 billion this year, to $15 billion by 2025, according to the National Economic Strategy 2030 posted last week on the government’s website. Other goals for 2030 are: double the economy; triple exports to $150 billion; nearly triple labor product...

Thursday, May 20

China’s Ambassador to Ukraine Fan Xianrong said that Chinese companies should invest in farming and processing food in Ukraine, Xinhua reports from an online forum held Tuesday: “Ukraine-China: The Future of Trade, Pulses, Grains, Oilseeds.” Fan notes that Ukraine’s food exports to China jumped 84% yoy, accounting for 45% of U...

Wednesday, May 19

Betting on strong Chinese demand for iron, Ferrexpo plans to spend $2 billion in capital investments to double its production of iron pellets by 2030 , reports Interfax-Ukraine. This year, the LSE-listed company is increasing production by 14%, to 12 million tons. A combination of strong Chinese demand and the Biden Administration’s planned infrast...

Interpipe, the steel pipe and Wheel Company, successfully returned to international capital markets last week, completing the placement of $300 million worth of Eurobonds, maturing in 2026. The coupon rate is 8.375% per annum. Fadi Hraibi, director general of the company, said that the bonds, now listed on the...

The privatization drive is “irreversible, ” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff, wrote on Facebook after President Zelenskiy chaired an inter-agency Zoom call Monday on the campaign. Over the next six weeks, there are to be ...

Auctions of state or communal farm land will now take place openly through electronic auctions conducted on the Internet, under a bill adopted yesterday by the Rada. “Anyone with a computer and Internet access will be able to take part in the auction,” (Interfax-Ukraine). “According to the ministry, the winners of the bi...

The Finance Ministry raised $513 million – in dollars, euros and hryvnia – in its weekly government bond auction yesterday. The Ministry reported on Facebook that hryvnia bonds, annual yields were virtually unchanged: 3-month at 8.5%; 1-year at 11.2%; 18-month at 11.3%; and 2-year at 12.05%. Investors bought $63 million wo...

Tuesday, May 18

Kyiv’s Sikorsky airport is embarking on a 3-year, $100 million investment program to allow long haul jets to land by the end of 2023. The asphalt concrete runway is to be rebuilt with concrete and extended by 20%, to 2,770 meters. Often restricted by fog, the airport will receive a Category II ILS instrumental landing system. This w...