Kyiv, September 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Astarta agricultural and industrial holding, a large Ukrainian sugar producer, on September 19, 2013, closed the acquisition of Orzhytsky sugar refinery, formerly owned by the Kernel holding, Astarta said in a statement on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The company doesn’t provide any other details of the acquisition. However, it noted that the refinery’s designed processing capacity is 6,000 tonnes of sugar beet per day.
Earlier Kernel decided to get out of the sugar business and sell its sugar refineries. In particular, Kernel owns Chortkiv sugar plant LLC, Tsukrove LLC (Kharkiv region), Palmirsky sugar refinery LLC (Cherkasy region), and Orzhytsky sugar refinery (Poltava region).
In May, the holding sold Chortkiv sugar plant to the Polish subsidiary of Germany’s Pfeifer & Langen, specializing in sugar production.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agribusiness with eight sugar refineries in Poltava, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv and Khmelnytsky regions. Its core business is sugar, grain, oilseeds, meat and milk production.
In 2012, it posted net profit at EUR45.133 million, which was 48.4% down on 2011.
