News
15.08.2013
Kernel attracts loan of $140 m from Russian bank
Kernel, one of the largest Ukrainian agrarian groups, has signed a facility agreement worth $140 million with a Russia bank, reads a company report on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE).
The report says that the loan consists of two tranches – a $100 million, five-year tranche and a $40 million, 12-month tranche.
The company did not disclose the name of the bank.
The loan is a dollar facility that will be drawn to partially refinance the acquisition costs and corporate debt on a 108,000-hectare farming business acquired in June 2013.
Kernel is a vertically integrated national company that has been working in the Ukrainian agricultural sector since 1994. It produces sugar, sunflower oil, distributes bottled oil under the Schedry Dar, Stozhar, and Chumak Zolota brands in Ukraine, exports oil and grain, and provides grain and oil crop storage services in grain elevators.
In H1, 2013 FY, Kernel saw $69.1 million in net profit, which is 25% down year-over-year. Its revenues rose by 49.5%, to $1.47 billion.
In June 2013, Kernel finalized a deal on the acquisition of the Druzhba-Nova agricultural company, which cultivates more than 110,000 hectares of farmland.
