Page 72 - UKRRptNov19

9.2.5 Retail corporate news
Cases of alleged judicial and administrative abuse of Western companies were related to Prime Minister Honcharuk by Andrew Hunder, president of the American Chamber of Commerce. At a meeting of foreign business executives Friday, Hunder cited problems encountered by Philip Morris International, Jabil Circuit, Shell, Unilever and McDonald's. “McDonald's has been unable to open a restaurant at Boryspil Airport for many years,” said Hunder. “Boryspil is the gateway to Ukraine. I hope that with you in the next few months we will be able to open a McDonald's restaurant.”
9.2.6 Agriculture corporate news
● Kernel
Ukraine’s Kernel, the world’s largest sunflower oil producer and exporter, reports its sunflower seed crushing volume was up 49% July-September y/y, to 623,700 tons. Concorde Capital’s Andriy Perederey writes: “Kernel boosted its crushing volumes in 1QFY20 due to higher availability of sunflower seeds on the market, caused by a higher harvest this season. The Ukraine average sunflower seed yield was 2.4 t/ha, or 8.5% y/y higher.”
Kernel EBITDA surges 55% y/y in FY2019. Ukraine’s largest sunflower oil producer and grain trader Kernel (KER PW, KERPW) reported on Sep. 30 its FY2019 EBITDA surged 55.1% y/y to $345mn. EBITDA growth was led by its sunflower oil segment as oil in bulk EBITDA rose 46.9% y/y to $93mn, while the company’s bottled oil segment EBITDA advanced 19.4% y/y to $16mn. Meanwhile, its farming segment's FY2019 EBITDA skyrocketed 2.05x y/y to $182mn. Grain trading segment EBITDA surged 77.1% y/y to $31mn, while the company’s export terminals FY2019 EBITDA decreased 7.9% y/y to $36mn and silo services FY 2019 EBITDA dropped 14.0% y/y to $38mn. The company’s bulk sunflower oil EBITDA/t improved 27.7% y/y to $62.2/t and bottled sunflower oil EBITDA/t rose 8.0% y/y to $121.6/t in FY2019. The company reported a revenue surge of 66.2% y/y to $3,992mn and its net income jumped 2.63x y/y to $189mn in FY2019. As of June 30, 2019, the company’s net debt amounted to $694mn vs. $622mn a year ago. So the company’s net debt/EBITDA ratio was 2.0x as of end-June vs. 2.8x a year ago. Also, the company’s outlook for FY2020 is positive and the company expects the higher capacity load and improved margins in its sunflower oil segment.
Ukraine’s largest sunflower oil producer and grain trader Kernel reported its oilseeds crushing volume jumped 50.2% y/y to 628.7 kt in 1QFY20 (July-Sept 2019), according to its operational update published on October 21. The company processed 5.0 kt of soybeans in 1QFY20, so the total sunflower seed crushing volume was 623.7kt, or 49.0% y/y growth in 1QFY20. Kernel’s total sunflower oil sales dropped 25.7% y/y to 300.9 kt in 1QFY20. Its bottled sunflower oil sales comprised 8.4% of total oil sales volume. Therefore, bottled oil sales fell 11.7% y/y to 25.3 kt and bulk sunflower oil sales dropped 26.8% y/y to 273.4 kt in 1QFY20. The company’s grain sales from Ukraine rose 17.4% y/y to 1.62 mmt in 1QFY20, while physical grain trading volumes through its Swiss-based company Avere dropped 59.8% y/y to 604.6 kt in 1QFY20. The company’s export terminal throughput in Ukraine gained 21.6% y/y to 1.2 mmt in 1QFY20. Kernel also updated the results of its farming campaign. The company’s preliminary corn yield (71% of acreage under corn harvested) was 8.5 t/ha, or 14.1% lower y/y. Its wheat yield rose 13.7% y/y to
72 UKRAINE Country Report November 2019 www.intellinews.com