French-based BNP Paribas has opened a $65 million credit line for large Ukrainian-based Agrotrade agricultural group to increase circulating capital to buy grain, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
The terms of the financing have not been disclosed.
The group says that this was the third credit deal with BNP Paribas since 2008.
Agrotrade was founded in 1998. It was then called East-Ukrainian Agro-Industrial Company.
Over the recent years the group has been developing a vertical integration strategy. Its land bank in Kharkiv, Sumy and Chernihiv regions grew to 40,000 hectares. Moreover, the group includes grain storage and processing facilities, seed breeding companies and flour mills. Agrotrade estimates its share on the market of grain exports from Ukraine at 4%.
The group’s head company, Kharkiv-based Agrotrade Ltd. company, posted a UAH 35.97 million net profit in 2009 against a net loss of UAH 6 million posted in 2008, and its net revenues in 2009 grew by 106.4%, to UAH 840.81 million.
