Page 8 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

8 I The Month That Was bne June 2020
Business
Eastern Europe
Russia’s Gazprom is pushing ahead with plans to build a second major gas pipeline to China called Power of Siberia II that will pump up to 50bn cubic metres per year of Russian gas to consumers in China via Mongolia. The first 38bcm pipeline to China was launched in in December.
Russia's oil major Rosneft reported
a net IFRS loss of RUB156bn ($2bn) in 1Q20 versus net profit of RUB131bn a year earlier, due to currency losses and a drop in oil prices. FX losses soared to RUB177bn on a weaker ruble and revaluation.
Russian agricultural major RusAgro tripled its net profit year on year in 1Q20 to RUB2.3bn ($86.2mn) despite the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic. Revenues stood at RUB33bn versus RUB28bn for the same period of last year.
Sales of Russian children's goods retailer Detsky Mir recovered by 2% year on year in the first 18 days of May. Detsky Mir’s sales jumped on the mass supply stocking up by the public in 1Q20, but the sales dived by 20% y/y in April. Online sales surged 3.8x y/y
in April to RUB3.3bn, delivering 1.9mn online orders of children’s goods in Russia. The sales growth turned positive in the beginning of May even despite 92 out of 846 stores still being closed.
The EBRD has provided a $60mn loan to Ukraine's major retailer Fozzy Group to fund its expansion. Domestic food producers, which supply Fozzy Group with groceries, will also benefit from the investment.
Ebitda at Belarus's leading food retailer Eurotorg dropped by 22.8% year on year to BYN306mn ($146mn) in 2019. The Ebitda margin decreased by 2.7 pp to 6.2% under pressure from the lower gross margin and higher selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses.
Central Europe
Poland’s state-controlled refiner PKN Orlen will get involved in the Ostroleka power plant project it acquired via the purchase of utility Energa “only if it switches to gas.” The plant was supposed to be Poland’s last coal-fired power installation but ESG concerns means investors are shying away from coal.
German automaker Volkswagen will lay off 450 workers from its Polish plants in the western Poznan region, where nearly 10,000 people are employed, due to a collapse in demand. The number of new vehicles registered in Poland plummeted 65.83% y/y in April, while sales
fell 47.43% in monthly terms.
year. Last month Slovenia saw the steepest fall in new vehicle registrations in CEE. In April 2020 new car registrations fell by 71.4% y/y to 1,846 units. French car maker Renault plans to cut about 400 jobs at its Slovenian plant Revoz.
Romania's telecom regulator ANCOM hold a tender for a 5G tender in the third quarter of this year and issue licences in the fourth quarter, ANCOM said.
Romanian carmaker Dacia's sales in Europe dropped by 53% to 93,258 units in the first four months of this year, according to the Romanian Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACAROM), worse than the EU average 38.5% fall in the same period.
Eurasia
Kazakhstan’s giant Kashagan oil field saw its output rise by 48% y/y in January-April to 5.8mn tonnes, but the rise will not be sustained as the operators of Kazakhstan’s three giant oil fields have agreed to cut output in May as part of Kazakhstan’s commitment to the OPEC+ agreement. In addition production at the largest oilfied, Tengiz, due to an outbreak of coronavirus amongst workers.
Some 1.2mn shoppers visited Turkey’s shopping malls on May 11, the first day of the reopening following a coronavirus lockdown, according to the Turkish Shopping Centre Investors’ Association. Before the coronavirus outbreak, on average 6.5mn people visited the shopping centres on a daily basis.
Turkey's Aksa Enerji has signed an agreement with Uzbekistan’s energy ministry for the construction of
a 240-megawatt natural gas combined cycle power plant in Tashkent, according to a company announcement. Under the contract, Aksa Enerji will also operate the plant and sell its electricity for 25 years.
Warsaw-listed Polish retailer Dino posted a net profit of PLN103.9mn (€22.76mn) in the first quarter,
an increase of 55% y/y, beating the consensus by 18.4%. Dino benefitted from the panic buying surge of sales of grocery products in March.
The construction of a €1bn plant by BMW in eastern Hungary is going ahead on schedule. BMW announced in 2018 it will build a new plant in Hungary’s second-largest city near the Romanian border with a capacity of 150,000 cars annually from 2023.
Southeast Europe
New passenger car registrations in Slovenia plunged by 38.8% y/y to 16,354 in the first four months of the
www.bne.eu