Ukraine might finally sell one of the three giant assets it wants to privatize by the end of this year.
On Sept.1, the Cabinet of Ministers published terms of sale and officially set a starting price of $52 million for Kyiv’s 140-year old machine-building plant Bolshevik, the government portal reported.
“A new stage in the history of this extraordinary object begins,” wrote Dmytro Sennychenko, head of the State Property Fund. “Now it’s a small matter: to find investors for this asset.”
The date for the auction will be announced soon, he said.
Standing on a 35-hectares plot along Peremohy Avenue, near Shulavska metro station, the plant barely makes ends meet today.
According to the Fund, the main source for Bolshevik’s earnings is rental payments from the lease of its premises. Only two out of 20 workshops currently operate.
The factory last produced something 50 years ago, according to Sennychenko.
In 2020, it generated a meager $3 million in revenue while struggling with $18 million debt. The plant has to pay $1.5 million in land tax every year on top of that.
Only 236 people worked there as of Sept. 1. compared to the busy days of the early 1990s when the plant employed more than 6,000 people.
The future owner of the plant would have several key obligations, including paying off debts and investing at least $2 million into the plant’s modernization within the next three years.
Sennychenko tried to attract buyers on social media, recalling the history of the plant, which was founded by a Swiss businessman in the 19th century.
“Maybe someone from Switzerland, because history is cyclical, isn’t it?” he said.
Bolshevik’s employees blamed the State Property Fund for poor management that caused the plant to deteriorate.
“For decades, the Fund did not pay any attention to the work of the enterprise,” Valeriy Skrypka, chairman of the plant’s trade union organization, told Ukrainian news website Mind.ua in February.
Skrypka complained that four different directors were appointed in a single year, without tangible results.
“One unprofessional change after another. They don’t know the production, don’t feel it, don’t take long-term orders,” said Skrypka. “We just see a desire to ruin the plant.”
