The government has again steeled itself to sell a piece of the controversial Mykolayiv Alumina Plant (MAP), setting a starting price in a tender for a 30 percent stake in the plant.
The State Property Fund has set the starting price for a the stake in MAP at Hr 113.5 million, Ukrainian News reported, quoting an unidentified official at the agency. The figure is down from the Hr 190 million that the fund said last year it planned to raise from the sale of a majority stake in the company.
Oleksandr Bondar, the head of the SPF, said the fund would consider applications to buy the stake only from industrial investors experienced in the alumina production business.
He also said financial intermediaries, frequent tender winners in the past, shouldn’t bother competing this time. The fund is planning to put the stake on the block by the end of March this year, Bondar said.
Meanwhile, Russian metals trading giant and MAP’s largest shareholder Siberian Aluminum Group (SAG) told the Post it would compete in the tender. SAG spokesman Maksim Ryamchukov said ownership of MAP, along with an aluminum factory that SAG is hoping to build in Ukraine, will give his company an almost complete production chain in Ukraine.
According to Ryamchukov, SAG currently controls 36 percent of MAP shares, and Russian companies have long sought complete ownership the Ukrainian plant.
The Russian-controlled Trans World Group (TWG) metals trader has also bid for control of MAP but its interest faded when the plant’s management said it planned to end tolling – a complex web of barter-like operations on which TWG has depended to produce alumina.
Another factor making MAP attractive to Russian aluminum makers is that their own country lacks the capacity to produce alumina in sufficient quantities to supply Russia’s aluminum smelters.
MAP, Europe’s largest alumina producer, could make up the difference. The plant produced some 992,000 tons of alumina last year, accounting for about 80 percent of Ukraine’s total alumina production.
MAP has a charter capital of Hr 378 million, with the nominal value of each share being Hr 0.25. Some 55 percent shares in the company have been sold.
Privatization news
The State Property Fund will sell off a majority-share package in a huge chemical company this year, officials said on Feb. 15, according to the Associated Press report.
The property fund is preparing to tender a 92.53 percent stake in the Oriana complex, which produces oil-refinery products and fertilizers in the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk, the fund’s press service said.
Some foreign companies, including the Hungarian chemical plant Tiszai Vegyi Kombinat RT, British Leavesley and two large Russian oil compamies – Tyumen and Lukoil – have expressed serious interest in investing in Oriana in the past.
In another major announcement, the SPF announced it would sell a majority stake in Makyivka metallurgical works on March 17. The fund said it had decided to sell 50 percent plus 1 share in the metallurgical plant. The deadline for bid submission is March 9. Located in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Makyivka metallurgical works has a charter capital of Hr 354 million. The nominal value of each of the company’s shares is Hr 0.25.
The plant made some 491,000 tons of steel last year, some 27 percent less than in 1998, and about 2 percent of Ukraine’s total steel output. The company made losses of more than Hr 371,000 last year.
The SPF also formally announced four tenders on Feb. 10: A commercial tender for a 50.98 percent stake in Crimea-based construction company Nadezhda; a commercial tender for a 30.78 percent stake in Donetsk-based plastics maker Sivero; a commercial tender for a 30 percent stake in agricultural-machine builder Rivnesilmash; a commercial tender for a 50 percent stake in machine-maker Kolomyasilmash; and a commercial tender for a 50 percent stake in Luhansk-based machine-building plant Krasnorichensk. For more details, see SPF schedule of tenders chart on this page.
