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8 I The Month That Was bne July 2019
Business
Eastern Europe
Chinese COFCO trading corporation is eyeing a 25% stake in Russian KSK grain terminal in Novorossiysk, Vedo- mosti daily and Reuters reported on July 14 citing the sources close to the deal. DeloPorts controlling the third largest grain terminal in the southern Cherno- morsk region of Russia confirmed
the negotiations without disclosing the details.
The London Court of International Arbitrage (LCIA) supported the right of FinVision of Artyom Avetisyan to demand the exercise of an option
for 9.99% in Oriental Express Bank (OEB) of Baring Vostok Capital Partners (BVCP) investment fund, Vedomosti daily reported on June 17 citing an unpub- lished copy of the court's decision.
Russian air carriers posted a cumu- lative record-loss of RUB45.3bn ($704Mn) in January-March 2019, RBC business daily reported on June 17 citing a report by industry associa- tion. The loss posted by the industry is alarming, despite the seasonally weak first quarter.
One of Russia's "big four" mobile operators Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) is in talks to acquire a stake in mobile taxi ordering service Gett in Russia, Kommersant daily reported citing unnamed sources.
Ukraine's battered farming holding Mriya, which defaulted on its $1.2bn debts in 2014, and Continental Farm- ers Group (CFG) have completed the merging of their businesses and will
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now work under a single brand, Conti- nental, cultivating land in five regions of Western Ukraine.
Central Europe
The authorities suspended the oper- ating licence of one of the largest fertiliser plants in Hungary owned by Laszlo Bige. The businessman said he suspects revenge by the competition and in particular one person, but he did not go as far as naming anyone.
UK hypermarket chain Tesco remained the largest retailer in Hungary even as it has recorded falling revenues for the sec- ond straight year according to the annual list from Trade magazine. Gross revenue of the retailer fell from HUF809bn (€2.5bn) to HUF769bn in 2018.
Leading low-cost airline Ryanair is prepar- ing legal action against Czech start up Kiwi.com in the Irish High Court over the re-sale of its tickets, daily E15.cz reported. The Irish carrier forbids any re-selling of its tickets and only allows access to its flight information for price comparisons. A ticket purchase itself is supposed to be made exclusively via the company’s channels.
Estonia was the top ranked country from the eastern part of the EU on the 2019 Digital Economy and Society Index, and was the only country from the region to score above average. Roma- nia and Bulgaria were the lowest ranked countries on this year’s index.
Southeast Europe
Swedish telecom company Tele2 AB agreed to sell its Croatian unit, Tele2 Croatia, to United Group for an enterprise value of €220mn. The sale is part of Tele2 AB’s strategy to focus on the
Baltic Sea region.
Marka Holding suspended plans to buy now-defunct Turk Ticaret Bankasi from Turkey’s Saving Deposit Insurance
Fund (TMSF). “We have decided to shelve our plans to buy the bank for the time being due to developments inside the company and volatility in Turkey,” Marka Holding said in a filing with the Istanbul stock exchange.
Slovenia had the fastest rising house prices in the world in the first quarter of 2019 with average values rising 18.2% y/y, according to a report from Knight Frank. European countries account for six of the top ten in the first quarter with Hun- gary (9.2%) making its fourth consecutive appearance in the top ten rankings.
An award winning Croatian tour com- pany said it will no longer work with cruise companies or their passengers. The decision followed a damning report from environmental consultancy Trans- port & Environment that revealed toxic sulphur oxides (SOx) emissions from cruise ships on European routes are many times higher than the entire SOx emis- sions from the continent’s car fleet.
Eurasia
Mongolia's pig population remains under threat from highly contagious African swine fever, now being described as the biggest animal disease outbreak the planet has ever faced given the millions
of pigs already culled in China and Vietnam in efforts at fighting it.
A blaze at an Iranian production plat- form in the South Pars gas field was contained by fireboats. The fire broke out at the offshore production platform that serves Iran’s phases 6, 7 and 8 in the development of the huge South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The UK headquarters of British American Tobacco (BAT) decided to start deliver- ing processed Uzbek tobacco compo- nents to BAT factories in EU countries. BAT subsidiary UzBAT will supply the “Basma” tobacco variety, which is native to western Greece, to European BAT plants.