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shopping mall with a total area of 1,900 square meters. Lviv will become the fourth city in Ukraine where the brand is represented, after Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa. The first H&M store in Ukraine was opened in 2018. Currently, H&M has 7 stores in Ukraine.
German discount retail chain Lidl has appointed Adam Miszczyszyn, 47, to lead the store’s expansion into Ukraine, business paper Lebensmittel Zeitung reported on Oct. 15. German Lebensmittel Zeitung cited Lidl’s internal memo which indicated that Schwarz Group, Lidl’s parent company based in Neckarsulm, Germany, is going to enter the Ukrainian market.
9.2.6 Agriculture corporate news
● Kernel
Kernel announces tender to repurchase its 4.3% shares. Ukrainian sunflower oil producer and grain trader Kernel (KER PW, KERPW) launched a tender on October 26 to purchase 3.575mn of its shares with the price range of PLN 55 – PLN 60 per share, according to its regulatory announcement. Kernel’s stock closed yesterday at PLN 64.1/share. The tendered shares constitute 4.3% of the share capital of the company. The company’s tender opening date is the November 2 and the tender closing date is November 9. The maximum total consideration for the purposes of this tender shall not exceed PLN 197mn (or $49.5mn), the announcement said. Kernel’s initiaitve in line with its plan to repurchase up to 19.2mn shares (or about 22.8% of total shares outstanding) with a price range of PLN 50-65 over a 2-year period. It is the second offering to buy back shares after Kernel bought total 3.8% of its shares for $49mn (at PLN 60/share, with a bid range of PLN 55-65 in September.
Kernel EBITDA jumps 2.1x y/y in FY2021 on tailwind Ukraine’s leading sunflower oil producer, farmer and grain trader Kernel (KER PW, KERPW) reported record high P&L in its annual results released on October 4. Its FY2021 (ending June 2021) revenue increased 37% y/y to $5,647mn with all segments going up, mostly due to better prices.
In particular, its oilseed segment revenue increased 13% y/y to $1,747mn (seed processing decreased 7% y/y to 3.18 mmt), its farming segment revenue increased 9% y/y (volumes fell 13% y/y) and infrastructure & trading segment revenue jumped 43% y/y (grain export volumes increased 1% y/y to 8.01 mmt).
The company’s FY2021 EBITDA increased 110% y/y to $929mn, mostly driven by its prop trading company Avere which demonstrated an “exceptional result” due to high volatility of soft commodity prices. Avere’s EBITDA increased 9.6x y/y to $385mn (excluding Avere, Kernel’s EBITDA increased 35% y/y to $544mn). In the oilseed segment, Kernel’s EBITDA fell 63% y/y to $56mn (EBITDA per ton of oil processed fell 59% y/y to $41), which the company attributed to high competition for oilseeds (amid the low harvest of the last year), as well as trading loss in the last quarter and one-off losses related to suppliers’ defaults under forward agreements (due to which, in 4QFY21, Kernel’s EBITDA in the segment was negative).
74 UKRAINE Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com