NEQSOL Holding, the owner of Ukraine's second-largest mobile operator "VF Ukraine" (TM "Vodafone Ukraine"), has fully paid 3.94 billion UAH to the state budget of Ukraine for the acquisition of the state-owned shares of the Public Joint Stock Company "United Mining and Chemical Company" (UMCC, Kyiv) at a privatization auction.
"The auction winner has settled the payment for the state share of the largest titanium raw material producer in the country. Additionally, the new owner has taken on significant investment commitments: to invest no less than 400 million UAH in production modernization, which will facilitate the further development of the enterprise," the State Property Fund (SPF) stated on Monday.
Meanwhile, the regional director of NEQSOL Holding, Volodymyr Lavrenchuk, noted that the international group of companies, operating in 11 countries, is taking the necessary legal steps to complete the privatization process.
"As a strategic investor, we have already begun negotiations with several specialized companies from the USA, Australia, the UK, and Canada to attract the best global experience for developing a new strategy for UMCC. This strategy involves fulfilling privatization commitments, deep modernization, and expansion into global markets," he emphasized.
The SPF highlighted that the process of large-scale privatization is ongoing, and on December 19, 2024, 100% of the state share of the nationalized construction materials producer LLC "AEROK" will be auctioned in the online trading system "Prozorro.Sales" with a starting price of 965.3 million UAH.
The SPF reminded that considering the sale of the "Ukraine" hotel earlier this autumn, the total revenue from large-scale privatization this year has already exceeded 6.4 billion UAH.
As reported, the LLC "Cemin Ukraine," controlled by NEQSOL Holding, was the sole bidder for the purchase of UMCC at the auction scheduled for October 9: with an initial price of 3 billion 899.358 million UAH, it offered 3 billion 938 million 351.581 thousand UAH.
The founder and owner of NEQSOL Holding is Azerbaijani citizen Nasib Hasanov. As stated on the holding's website, he began providing brokerage services in the 1990s during the collapse of the Soviet Union, initially supplying chemicals and expanding his business in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and other former Soviet countries, and later supplying equipment for the oil and gas industry in the region.
Subsequently, Hasanov utilized the accumulated capital to invest in Azerbaijan's oil and gas sector, founding his own company in this industry. The holding's enterprises in the energy sector are consolidated under two groups: Nobel Oil E&P (UK) Limited (trading as Nobel Upstream), which is engaged in exploration and production in the UK, USA, and Azerbaijan, and Nobel Energy, providing diversified integrated services for international oil and gas operators in the Caspian region and beyond.
The holding entered the telecommunications sector in 2005 by acquiring Bakcell, the first Azerbaijani telecommunications company, and in 2019, NEQSOL Holding purchased "Vodafone Ukraine." The holding also invests in various startups.
In the late 2000s, the group expanded its business portfolio, establishing a presence in the construction services and materials market, producing cement and related materials. The company Norm, founded in 2013, is the largest cement producer in the South Caucasus. Before the war, NEQSOL Holding was close to acquiring the largest Ukrainian cement producer "Ivano-Frankivsk Cement," but later withdrew from the deal.
Currently, the group employs over 12,000 staff across 11 countries, including the UK, USA, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and the UAE. The company's headquarters are located in Amsterdam, Baku, and Kyiv.
UMCC commenced actual operations in August 2014 when the Ukrainian government decided to transfer the property complexes of the Volnogorsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant (VMMP, Dnipropetrovsk region) and the Irshansk Mining and Processing Plant (IMPP, Zhytomyr region) to its management. These plants were previously leased by structures associated with Dmytro Firtash.
In August 2016, the government included UMCC in the list of companies slated for privatization in 2017. The timelines were postponed several times, most recently due to Covid and quarantine measures.
Before the war, in the second half of 2021, the SPF attempted to auction UMCC three times with a starting price of 3.7 billion UAH. The last auction, scheduled for December 20, did not take place as only two bids were submitted, one of which was rejected due to non-compliance with the law. At that time, one participant was insufficient for the sale. This was preceded by a statement from the privatization advisor "BDO Corporate Finance" that international companies were not prepared to participate in the auction due to a lack of guarantees for protecting large investments from the Cabinet of Ministers. At that time, the SPF and the advisor appealed to the government for such guarantees, but to no avail.
In 2023, UMCC's revenue fell by 15.4% to 1 billion 946.68 million UAH, while its net loss amounted to 481.35 million UAH compared to a net profit of 13.37 million UAH a year earlier. According to YouControl data, from January to September this year, the company increased revenue by 88.8% to 2 billion 295.5 million UAH, achieving a net profit of 89.1 million UAH compared to a net loss of 274.2 million UAH in the same period last year.