Myronivsky Hliboproduct, a leading poultry maker that occupies half of the Ukrainian market according to the State Statistics Service, is placing 250,000 of its 150 million shares, or 0.17 percent, on the Ukrainian Exchange (UX). From Feb. 2, local investors will be able to buy company's stocks.
With the biggest local companies traded elsewhere but not in Ukraine,
this might be an important step, even though the percentage of the corporate
stocks placed domestically is quite tiny. MHP with 600,000 tons of poultry
produced annually has almost a 5 percent share of the global market.
Dmytro Tarabakin, managing director of Dragon Capital investment house that initiated the stock placement, says it took 3.5
years to bring MHP to the UX. “The
instrument will be denominated in hryvnias and be available only for the
residents,” he said during the Jan. 27 news conference.
“We’d like to have the exactly same price of the MHP shares as it
is on the London Stock Exchange (which is $9.53 as of Feb. 2),” he added.
Around 40 percent of the corporate shares are traded in London, while the rest
belongs to Yuriy Kosyuk, a billionaire who’s back to the company’s board after serving for about half a year in the Presidential Administration.
This is overall good news for the investors, who now get a chance to
place their money in a big company. Previously, stocks of aircraft engines
producer Motor Sich, electricity generators Donbasenergo and Centrenergo,
Raiffeisen Bank Aval and oil extracting company Ukrnafta were the key
investment options.
With $324 million of gross profit in 2013, 23 percent down year-on-year,
MHP will release the 2014 financial results on March 17. As of three quarters
of 2014, company had $37 million of net losses.
The 2014 dividend yield almost reaches 8 percent in dollar terms, though
the company is experiencing losses.
This year, investment house expects the company to have $354 million of
net losses. “Despite the possible losses, our company still might consider
doling out the dividends for 2015,” said company’s chief financial officer
Viktoriya Kapelyushna.
Presenting the company’s strategy, Kapelyushna emphasized it plans to
expand the plant growing and will also try to increase the exports to the
European Union. As of now, 45 percent of the revenue comes from the exporting
that is being conducted to 50 countries. “In 2013, we made a decision to
reduce our focus on the markets of Russia and Kazakhstan and diversity the
portfolio of foreign clients,” she added.
MHP closed an incubatory egg producing plant in the Donbas that used to cover
the 30 percent of company’s needs due to the war. Now, it considers an option
of switching another plant’s focus to incubatory eggs.
Besides the MHP shares, UX traders now have an option to hedge their
risks through futures contracts involving hryvnia – dollar currency couple and
gold. Previously, they didn’t have such an option.
Kyiv Post associate
business editor Ivan Verstyuk can be reached at [email protected].
