Daily monitor

According to a note from the State Statistics Committee, the net FDI inflow to Ukraine was USD 1.11 bln in 1Q09 compared to USD 3.41 bln in 1Q08. The FDI volume, therefore, has grown 11% and has reached USD 36.53 bln.

Astarta [AST PW, BUY] posted its unaudited 1Q09 financial and operational results on its web-site. The company increased its revenues by 55.2% YoY to UAH 233.8 mln (USD 30.6 mln), EBITDA shrank by 36.4% YoY to UAH 41.2 mln (USD 5.4 mln) and net income shriveled to UAH 9.6 (USD 1.3 mln).

Yesterday Kernel [KER PW, BUY] released its unaudited financial results for 3Q 08/09 and consolidated unaudited financial results for 9M 08/09. Key highlights for 9M 08/09: net revenues increased by 75% YoY to USD 865.9 mln, EBIT expanded by 107% YoY and net income jumped by 183% YoY to USD 113.8 mln.

The privatisation of a 25% stake in Chernigivoblenergo [CHEON UZ, BUY] was successful yesterday, as expected. Surprisingly, the bidders competed severely and as a result, the purchase price of the CHEON stake was 88% above the initial asking price.

According to a note from the State Statistics Committee, merchandise balance in 1Q09 were USD 1.44 bln, compared to USD 5.03 bln in 1Q08.

In 1Q09, the number of Ukrtelecom [UTLM UZ, U/R] internet users rose by 32.6% YoY to reach 680 thd unique users, according to a company press release.

Yesterday the Ukrainian government announced that it had changed the bank recapitalization rules. In particular, the new version of the statement increases the minimum threshold to a 60%+1 stake from 50%+1.

As of May 8, 2009 Ukraine had exported a total of 23.79 mln mt of grain during the 2009 marketing year. This includes 7.73 mln mt of mill wheat, 6.0 mln mt of forage wheat ,4.6 mln mt of corn and 5.3 mln mt of barley . Moreover, as of May 8, 2009 Ukraibe had exported 0.6 mln mt of sunflower seeds and 2.6 mln mt of rape seeds.

The government of Ukraine endorsed the draft of a bill that will increase the beer excise by 74.2% to UAH 0.54 (USD 0.07) per liter. Moreover, the government proposed to increase the wine excise by 2.8 times to UAH 1.4 (USD 0.18) per liter. The draft will be forwarded to the Parliament for further consideration and adoption.

According to a note from Moody’s Investors Service, the agency has downgraded Ukraine’s foreign and local currency government bond ratings from B1 to B2 and assigned a negative outlook.