Page 66 - UKRRptMar19

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.2 Automotive corporate news
Zaporizhia Automobile Plant, or ZAZ, has started assembling a test batch of South Korea’s LS Mtron tractors . LS, South Korea’s largest tractor maker, has factories in Brazil and China. “The creation of a joint venture with the manufacturer is not being discussed yet,” Dmytro Skliarenko, spokesman for UkrAVTO, the ZAZ parent company, cautioned Interfax-Ukraine. ZAZ has signed a distribution agreement with LS and has presented LS tractors at agro fairs here. Priced between $38,000-70,000, the LS models under study would go head to head with MTZ Belarus tractors, imports popular among Ukraine’s small and medium farmers.
9.2.3 Transport corporate news
UIA, Ukraine’s flag carrier, carried more passengers – +15% -- and more freight – +12% -- but lost money last year, Yuri Miroshnikov, company president, tells Liga.Biznes. Without specifying the size of the loss, he blamed Ukraine’s aviation fuel taxes and Russia’s ban on Ukrainian airlines flying over its air space.
Ukrzalyznitsia plans to spend nearly $1bn on capital expenditures this year – one third more than last year. Spending is to go for 3,650 new freight cars, the repair of 7,000 freight cars and the purchase of 15 locomotives from GE. Rail chair Kravtsov says an EBRD loan guarantees renovation of almost 6,000 freight cars through the end of next year.
Ukraine’s battered state-owned railway monopoly Ukrzaliznytsia sees the potential to increase its debt by $1bn and intends to offer a Eurobond , according to the company's CEO Yevhen Kravtsov. With the company’s gross debt of UAH34.2bn as of August 2018, its net debt-to-Ebitda ratio was at 1.5x, Kravtsov said in a statement on February 15. The company has a leverage covenant of 3.0x, based on its agreements with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). "That means that with Ebitda at the current level, we are capable of increasing our debt level by UAH25bn to UAH30bn," he added. Kravtsov also confirmed that the company is now considering a Eurobond issue, on which he can further comment as soon as the government publishes a respective resolution (on its parameters).
With the state railroad due to pay $150mn on a Eurobond in March, the Cabinet of Ministers has re-authorized Ukrzaliznytsia to issue up to $500mn in Eurobonds at interest rates up to 11% a year, slightly higher than the level authorized last September. Last December, a Eurobond launch planned was postponed in an adverse environment marked by delay in reaching the IMF accord and nervousness around the one month imposition of martial law. Today, the lead managers are JP Morgan and Dragon Capital. Separately, Evhen Kravtsov, chairman of the railroad, said Friday that Ukrzaliznytsia cut its hrvynia debt last year by 10%, to the dollar equivalent of $1.1bn.
Kyiv’s Antonov plans to resume production this year of three jets :
66 UKRAINE Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com