Investments

Monday, May 3

Investors from the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU comprised the bulk of demand for the offering – 42%, 34% and 21%, respectively. Investors from Asia and MENA accounted for 3%.

Friday, April 30

President Zelenskiy yesterday signed a law allowing resumption of sales of large state companies, a privatization process that was suspended one year ago due to the coronavirus pandemic. All sales are to go through electronic auctions. Zelenskiy said: ““Despite the coronavirus crisis, our goal of ...

Australia’s Volt Resources Limited is paying $7.6 million to buy control of Ukraine’s Zavalivsky Graphite LLC, one of the 10 largest producers of natural graphite in the world. Volt says it is buying 70% of the company to become a producer of graphite for li-ion batteries. With a production capacity of 30,000 tons a year, Zavalivsky Graphite has been mining the deposit in Ki...

Wednesday, April 28

The Finance Ministry raised the equivalent of $370 million at its weekly auction yesterday, the Ministry reported on its Facebook page. Yields in hryvnia reflect the Central Bank’s increase in the nation’s prime rate 10 days ago to 7.5%. The yields were: 6-month – 9%; 1-year – 11.2%; 1.5 yea...

Two Citibank strategists recommend investors buy Ukraine’s GDP warrants, saying they could rise from 105.5c today, to 125c. In a note to investors Luis Costa and Dumitru Vicol wrote: “Mounting fiscal pressures to finance the planned 5.5%/GDP deficit for 2021 are likely to ...

Zakarpattia’s new airport is to cost almost $150 million to build, and is to be completed by the summer of 2024. This will be the end of President Zelenskiy’s current term. A priority for the government’s ‘Big Construction’ program, the airport is to have two 2,800-meter runways capable of handling A320 and B737...

Tuesday, April 27

Enjoying a peace window, on Monday Ukraine placed 8-year Eurobonds worth $1.25 billion at 6.875% per annum – the lowest yield of the government’s 11 outstanding Eurobonds, reported Bloomberg. The benchmark was 7-7.25%, but demand was almost three times supply, pushing down the final interest rate, reports Interfax.ru.

ICU wrote yesterday, referring to the government hryvnia bond market: “There has been very important improvement in market sentiment after the risk of escalating hostilities in the east of Ukraine declined, with immediate increase in Eurobonds’ and VRIs’ pri...

Germany’s Zeppelin, Ukraine’s only official Caterpillar dealer, is investing €10 million in new head office and service center in Vyshneve, a suburb of Kyiv oblast located 3 km southwest of the ring road. Under the guidance of Delta, an Austrian architectural firm, construction started last week. Zeppelin Ukraine has 12 branc...

Monday, April 26

On Thursday, Odesa’s 12-story Victoria Hotel will be put up for auction by the Deposit Guarantee Fund. Located a 10-minute walk from Arcadia beach, this Black Sea hotel has 229 rooms. The starting price is $7 million. The hotel is one of 862 assets that the Fund will be s...

Korrespondent magazine has ranked Ukraine’s five most valuable brands: Kyivstar (mobile) – $225 million; Rozetka (e-commerce) – $210 million; Darnitsa (pharmaceuticals) – $187 million; Morshynska (water) — $173.25 million; Nova Poshta (delivery) &...

Friday, April 23

Bolshevik, the oldest machine building plant in Kyiv, will probably be sold for the value of its 35 hectares of prime real estate, predicts Dmytro Sennychenko, head of the State Property Fund. Founded 140 years ago by a Swiss engineer, the state-owned factory has fallen on hard times, with production dwindling and bushes growing ...

Eight former prisons are to be sold this year, Justice Minister Denys Malyushka writes on Facebook. Three – in Irpin, Lviv and Odesa – are already in the auction pipeline. The other five are to be transferred shortly to the State Property Fund. Pr...

The first of seven state-owned flour mills is to be privatized through auction on May 7 , the State Property Fund reports. Often called ‘bakeries’ these Soviet-era complexes mill wheat and corn into flour and animal feed. Located alongside railroad tracks, the seven ‘kombinats’ have elev...

During the first quarter, the State Property Fund conducted 377 privatization auctions, raising $36 million for the Treasury. By July 1, the Fund plans to complete the sale of all 40 properties of Ukrspirt, the former state alcohol monopoly producer.

Thursday, April 22

BlaBlaCar, the Paris-based road travel platform, has acquired Octobus, a Ukrainian cloud platform that allows bus carriers to automate their business processes. The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, comes as the car-sharing service seeks combine on one platform carpooling and bus offerings for its 90 million users worldwide. In 2019, BlaBlaCar acquired Busfor...

Tuesday, April 20

The EBRD is also lending $57 million to the Kernel Group to improve the storage, transportation and export of agricultural commodities , the bank reported in a press release. The loan is part of a $200 million syndication arranged by French investment bank Natixis for Kernel, the world’s leading producer and exporter of sunflow...

The World Bank is commencing a new $100 million program for Ukrainian small and medium-sized businesses to receive soft loans for export-oriented projects, reported the Finance Ministry reports. Yesterday, the Cabinet of Ministers formally approved the long-term financing facility.

Accor, the France-based hospitality company, plans to open three new hotels in Ukraine over the next two years, said Alexis Delaroff, the Director General of Accor New East Europe (Interfax-Ukraine). Ibis Lviv and Ibis & Adagio Kyiv are to open next year, and Novotel Lviv is to follow in 2023. “Accor is alr...

Monday, April 19

UMG Investments plans to build a $150 million grain terminal at the Pivdennyi port, Ukraine’s busiest port on the Black Sea. The terminal will be capable of handling 9 million tons of grain a year, which equates to 20% of Ukraine’s current exports. The terminal is expected to be completed by 2024, said UMG CEO, Andrey Gorok...

PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank, will put up for sale ‘soon,’ announced Kyrylo Shevchenko, the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, (GlobalCapital). “The privatization of PrivatBank, which owns 20% of the Ukrainian banking market, will be of interest to the...

The World Steel Association has predicted that Global steel demand is to increase by 6% yoy. Investment worldwide in delayed infrastructure projects will be a boon to Ukraine, which produces 20 million tons of steel a year, placing it 13th place worldwide in production output. China, which co...

Friday, April 16

The escalating military standoff with Russia is cutting foreign demand for domestic government bonds, Yuriy Geletiy, a deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, told reporters yesterday. “Prior to Russia’s concentration in the East, investors were actively buying IGLBs,” he said, referrin...

Timothy Ash, the Senior Emerging Markets Sovereign Strategist for Bluebay Asset Management, writes from London: “This is not good news for Russia. The result of these actions will inevitably be that fewer foreign investors will want to buy Russian debt which means higher borrowing costs, less investment and gro...

Thursday, April 15

Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of ArcelorMittal, told President Zelenskiy yesterday that his Ukraine unit is launching a ‘Steel Billion’ program, a nearly $1 billion investment to bring the steel maker in compliance with EU ‘green steel’ rules, according to the president’s website. By the end of 2023, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest integrated steel company, plan...

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...