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Eastern Europe
October 12, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
net debt/Ebitda ratio to 3.0x as of June 30, com- pared to 3.2x at the end of 2017. The Ebitda/inter- est expenses LTM coverage ratio stood at 2.9x as of late June, compared to 2.7x as of late Decem- ber 2017, the company said in the statement.
“The company expects that the group’s ratio of net debt to LTM Adjusted Ebitda as of 30 June 2018 will decline to below 2.0x,” the press release said.
The main shareholders are intending to partly cash out some of their stock. The secondary component of the offering includes a share offer by the company’s core shareholders, Uladzimir Vasilko, Sergey Litvin, Aleksandr Litvin and Andrei Zubkou, but the core shareholders expect to retain a majority shareholding in the company follow- ing the completion of the offering, the company said. The core shareholders have also agreed to a lock up clause preventing them from selling their shares following the IPO: Zubkou’s shares are locked up for a year while the other core share- holders may not sell their shares for 180 days.
Ukraine hopes to close IMF deal this month
bne IntelliNews
The Ukrainian government hopes to close a new deal with its biggest donor, the International Mon- etary Fund (IMF), this month and release some badly needed financial support after its $17.5bn extended fund facility (EFF) programme was ef- fectively frozen for foot-dragging on reforms, the local press in Ukraine reported on October 10. However, the new deal is likely to be a downgrade to a stand-by agreement, which has a shorter du- ration and more strings attached to the loans.
The core shareholders will use the proceeds of the IPO to buy the group’s stake in its subsidiary StatusBank, a universal bank with branches in 16 cities across Belarus, as part of the changes for BYN45.2mn ($21mn).
“The transaction shall be subject to the comple- tion of the IPO and customary regulatory approv- als. The company expects to use the proceeds from the sale for further deleveraging and reduc- tion of foreign-currency debt,” the company said.
The company expects to publish its operating results for the third quarter and first nine months of 2018 on or around October 18, and the details of the offering, including the offer price, will be published in the coming weeks, Eurotorg said.
Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan are acting as Joint Global Coordinators. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Renaissance Capital, Sova Capital, UBS and WOOD & Company are acting as Joint Bookrunners.
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko and IMF's Christine Lagrande.
“Ideally, it should be done by October 18, but we hardly have enough time,” the ukranews.com news site reported, citing its sources familiar with the talks.
This deadline was prompted by the Cabinet’s decision to postpone the IMF-required adjustment of natural gas prices for households until October 18, one of several crucial reforms the IMF has been insisting on but the government has been