Parliament approves minority squeeze out amendment

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, voted yesterday to approve changes to the Law “On Joint Stock Companies”. One of the major changes, introduced, was granting the right to majority shareholders, owners of 95% or more of shares, to force minority shareholders to sell their shares. The buyback is to be made at the market price, which is from stock exchange quotations if the stock is listed. Mykyta Mykhaylychenko: This might substantially reduce the number of traded stocks on local exchanges, as free-float is quite often less than 5% of a company’s total equity. Nonetheless, it will take up to a few years for most of the companies to realize their right.