Agribusiness giant UkrLandFarming which controls 654,000 hectares of farmland and is Ukraine’s biggest farming group, is in discussions with investors concerning a sale of a stake in the group in order to fund the acquisition of distressed agricultural operations in Ukraine and to diversify the group’s shareholder base prior to a market floatation. Three months ago UkrLandFarming postponed an initial public offering planned for both London and Hong Kong because of ongoing political conflicts between Ukraine and Russia. However the group still plans for a future floatation and is offering preferred stock to its new investors as opposed to the ordinary shares issued to Cargill which invested in the group in January of this year. Political tension in the east of the country, plummeting currency value, and rising costs of production have been hurting Ukrainian farming companies and the number of listed Ukrainian agricultural operations has fallen from 25 at the beginning of the decade to 10 or 11 today. Consultancy firm UkrAgroConsult states that a floatation by UkrLandFarming would help support the values of Ukraine’s foreign-listed farm operators who saw their market capitalization fall from €5 billion in 2013 to €2.6 billion today.
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