Investments

Thursday, April 15

Timofei Milovanov was appointed yesterday head of the new National Investment Fund of Ukraine, Vasily Mokan, representative of the Cabinet of Ministers in the Rada, wrote yesterday on his Facebook page. Milovanov, who served as Zelenskiy’s first Economy Ministry, will be charged with setting up...

The massing of Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders has weakened demand for Ukrainian domestic government bonds , or IGLBs, Danylo Hetmantsev, head of the Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, wrote after Tuesday’s hryvnia bond auction sold only the equivalent of $7.7 million. Writing on his Telegr...

Wednesday, April 14

Hours before the Biden-Putin telephone call, Bloomberg published a story noting that yields on ruble bonds had hit their highest level in a year. Asserting that US financial sanctions were likely, the story was headlined: “Putin’s Ukraine Gambit...

Sales of hryvnia bonds at yesterday’s government auction shriveled to the equivalent of $56.7 million – more than last week’s amount but 14% of the week before . War clouds with Russia and tomorrow’s expected interest rate hike by the Central Bank may have pushed buyers to hold off.

The Finance Ministry trumpeted the news that the yield on its 6-month bond dropped 52 basis points, to 8.07% . Of the $17.8 million put up for auction, only 28% were sold. The Ministry reported that 1-year bond sold unchanged with a yield of 10.75%, the 18-month bond sold also unchanged with a yield 11.1%. T...

International investors sold the equivalent of $100 million in government hryvnia bonds last week , ICU has reported. The Kyiv investment house wrote: “Sentiment changed at the end of the week when J.P. Morgan announced that it was including the Ukrainian note due 2025 to the watch list to be adde...

In a surprise switch, the Rada failed yesterday to repeal the law unblocking large-scale privatization . Only 49 of the needed 226 deputies voted in favor of selling state companies estimated to be worth more than $10 million. Oddly, the Rada voted for the bill on March 30. Large state companies genera...

“How Ukraine Lost it Investment Paradise,” headlined an article in the National Interest that blames the nation’s plummeting foreign investment on “Ukrainian authorities [falling] into the same trap of keeping their system semi-reformed, leavi...

The new engines account for half of a €170 million upgrade of the state company’s fleet . Work is to be done at the Ukrainian Danube’s Kiliya shipyard, about 50 km down river from the company headquarters in Izmail, Odessa. The company is talking to the EBRD and the Belgian government ab...

Tuesday, April 13

Ukrzaliznytsia plans to issue a Eurobond this year, to partially cover for a disastrous 2020. Largely due to the coronavirus, a $110 million profit in 2019 turned into a $430 million loss in 2020, according to the State Railroad’s recently released Ann...

Six Chinese companies plan to pay $700 million to buy 51% of a road and rail bridge over Turkey’s Bosporus, reporte Russian Railways Partner. Opened five years ago, Yavuz Sultan Selim is a toll bridge with eight lanes for cars and trucks and two rail tracks. Located at the Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus...

Monday, April 12

Ukraine ranked second worldwide for projects undertaken by Turkish construction companies in 2020, said Burak Pehlivan, the Chairman of the International Turkish-Ukrainian Business Association, (Kyiv Post). Boosted by the Zelenskiy government’s ‘Big Construction’ program, Turkish companies have und...

Friday, April 9

ATB supermarket chain plans to invest $410 million in its expansion in the Ukrainian market this year, said Boris Markov, ATB General Director, in a company press release. Claiming to be Ukraine’s fastest growing supermarket chain, ATB said that it invested $370 million in its expansion during 2020, op...

Poland’s BGK Bank has agreed to fund 60% of the first phase of Lviv’s Innovation District IT Park, the technology park has reported. The State-owned Bank, Gospodarstwa Krajowego, will loan €81.5 million for the €136 million first phase of development. With a first phase expected to be completed by ...

Thursday, April 8

The state-owned Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company is pursuing a $200 million ship investment program that would allow it to increase its capacity to carry 4 million tons of cargo on the Dnipro , a 40% increase over the river’s 2019 cargo level. In a first step, the parent agency, the Infrastructure Ministry, has endorsed the Danube Shipping’s plan to build 16 tugs and 31 barges for use on t...

The company is building five river-sea patrol boats under contract with France’s OCEA, said the French Ambassador to Ukraine, Etienne de Poncins. The first of the aluminum, high speed boats is to be delivered by the end of 2021. The Nibulon contract is part of a 20-boat, €136 million de...

This summer, the Rada is to approve creating a fund to pay for the government’s multi-billion dollar plan to renovate the Dnipro locks — and to triple river cargo, to 30 million tons a year, Infrastructure Minister Krikliy said at a recent meeting the European Business Association. The State Fund for Inland Waterways is modeled on the three-year-old Ukrainian St...

This summer work starts on a $66 million program to upgrade Bila Tserkva airport into an international air cargo center, reported Interfax-Ukraine. Located 80 km southwest of Kyiv’s Ring Road, Bila Tservka is to win a multimodal cargo complex, a passenger terminal, hangars for an aircraft maintenance center, runway repa...

Wednesday, April 7

Beyond “ensuring Qatar’s food security,” Ukraine is discussing using Qatar as a logistics hub to supply food to the region, said Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Presidential Chief of staff, (Ukrinform). Reviewing President Zelenskiy’s one day visit to Doha Monday, Zhovkva said: “During the talks, the leaders discussed the possibility...

The total value of mergers and acquisitions in Ukraine in 2020 dropped by 62%, falling below $1 billion. The number of M&A deals was 69, down 15% in comparison to 2019, according to a report issued yesterday by KPMG. Although deals are off to a slow start this year, the report predicts: “Momentum wil...

Boycotting Belarusian buses, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi says he will not accept the results of a European Investment Bank tender that awards the contract for 100 buses to MAZ, the Belarus company. “We have no right to finance the ...

Tuesday, April 6

Qatar’s state-owned Nebras Power signed an agreement with UDP Renewables to invest in Ukrainian solar plants which are planned for construction by the end of 2022. At the end of the investment cycle, Nebras will become owner of a controlling stake in the plants.

Qataris expressed an interest in buying or building hotels in Kyiv, Kherson region and Odesa, Zelenskiy said. To facilitate Qatari participation in Ukraine’s privatization campaign, Ukraine’s State Property Fund of Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Qatar Investment Authority....

Financing for Qatar’s largest investment in Ukraine – Qterminals’ Olvia concession – was brought forward by another meeting in Doha. QTerminals is now on track to fulfill the $140 million investment contract that it signed in August 2020.

Capital investment by cross border investors in Ukraine decreased by $868 million last year, the first decline of Incoming Investment since 2015, Bohdan Danylyshyn, Chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine wrote on Facebook. He said: “The key reasons for the low interest of foreign investors in the Ukrainian economy are the weak and underdevelo...

The Cabinet of Ministers has approved expenditure of $350 million to build 10 new customs checkpoints and to rebuild 25 old ones , the government portal has reported. Much of the funds originate from a Polish government loan to Ukraine to build border crossings with Poland. More than half of the loan will be used to buy and ins...

Lemtrans, owner of Ukraine’s largest private rail car fleet, is investing $15 million to create a logistics hub at Mostyska, Ukraine’s Lviv region border town with Poland. By the end of this year, this ‘Dry Port’ will allow shippers to switch container between trains on Soviet gauge tracks and trains on EU gauge tracks. Ref...

Monday, April 5

The government’s ‘Big Construction’ program will invest in infrastructure for four industrial parks this year, Oleksiy Chernyshov, Minister for Community and Territorial Development, says according the government website. The announcement came at a meeting with Dragon Capital, which is building two industrial ...

The World Bank is discussing a $200 million loan for improving IT higher education , the Finance Ministry wrote on Facebook. The funds will be spent on computers and to tailoring university curricula to real world employer needs. The Digital Transformation Ministry has set a goal of...

London-based VR Capital is investing €75 million to buy three wind power plants with a total design capacity of 49.5 MW in Odesa’s Bessarabia region. The seller, Metropoliya Group, is to continue technical support of the projects until they enter commercial operation next year, VR Capital said Thursday. In addition, VR’s Elementum Energy Ukraine is...

Friday, April 2

A “Chinese official delegation” to Russia-controlled Crimea in early March turned out to be composed of three Chinese traders who have worked for many years in Moscow’s wholesale markets , reported Meduza, the Russian-language news site based in Latvia. Vadim Rabinovich, a pro-Russia Ukrainian Rada member, wrote on Facebook that the visit could be a “countermove” by Beijing in respons...

JCB, Japan’s largest credit card company, is entering the Ukrainian market. It will be the fifth international card payment system in Ukraine with a non-resident payment organization, reported the National Bank of Ukraine. The 50-year-old Tokyo-based company has 5,000 employe...

Two Czech investment bankers prominent in Ukraine – Tomasz Fiala and Ivan Svitek –received permission from the National Bank of Ukraine to acquire UNEX bank. Fiala, through Dragon Capital companies, is buying 75%. Svitek, former CEO of Alfa-Bank Group in Ukraine, is buying 25%. The Central Bank ranks UNEX Bank as the 63rd largest of Ukraine’s 73 banks, wit...

The first large scale privatizations of public enterprises are to take place this summer , Prime Minister Shmygal announced on Telegram. After meeting with Dmytro Sennychenko, the Head of the State Property Fund, Shmygal wrote that top candidates for auction are: Kyiv’s President Hotel, K...

Concorde Capital plans to bring 10 Ukrainian companies to initial public offerings over the next two years, Concorde CEO Ihor Mazepa said recently at the IPO presentation of Veres Rivne People’s {Football] Club. Citing changes in Ukraine’s financial markets, the Concorde founder said: “What I have seen for ...