Ukraine cabinet considers selling Turboatom, other large assets

A Ukrainian cabinet committee has prepared a draft resolution to include in the list of companies subject to privatization leading power turbine producer Turboatom (TATM UK) and leading power generator producer Elektrovazhmash, Deputy Economy Minister Yulia Kovaliv reported on Aug. 30. Among the other large assets that the government may privatize are United Mining & Chemical Company, the Zaporizhia Titanium Plant and the State Food & Grain Corporation. The total amount of state companies on the privatization list for 2016-2017 could be 330, according to Kovaliv.

Alexander Paraschiy: Ukraine’s investment community can only support such proposals. The absence of large and profitable assets on Ukraine’s privatization list has been a significant problem, as we highlighted earlier. If the government is able to include the above-listed companies, it would not only enable it to raise the planned amount of privatization proceeds, but also attract new technologies to Ukraine. However, given the recent failure in Ukraine’s privatization efforts, in which only UAH 0.7 bln was raised since early 2014 out of UAH 53.4 bln planned for 2014-2016, we see a high execution risk in the government’s plans.