Daily monitor

For its operations in the period July-September, Ukraine's largest telecommunications enterprise Ukrtelecom [UTEL UZ, U/R] reported losses of UAH 211.261 mln (approx. USD 34.35 mln at 1USD = UAH 6.15).

Shareholders of Azovstal [AZST UZ, U/R], at their October 25 AGM, decided to declare dividends for 2006-2007 and dropped voting on dividends for 2002-2005.

Now that the third quarter of 2008 has drawn to a close, this past week has seen the release of quite a number of financial reports for Ukrainian companies.

Over the weekend, the IMF announced that it is ready to grant a USD 16.5 bln standby loan to Ukraine to fight the economic crisis.

The Open Joint Stock Company ‘Kyivenergo’ [KIEN UZ, BUY] announced negative financials for the first three quarters of 2008.

Ukzernoprom [4GW1 GR, N/R], a Ukrainian agricultural holding, has completed its winter sowing campaign for the 2009/10 marketing year.

The holding company AvtoKrAZ [KRAZ UZ, N/R] plans to reduce approximately 10% of its current staff. However, despite this new development, the company’s press service has also announced that the situation at the plant remains stable, and that AvtoKrAZ plans to maintain its production levels for this year at results that are not lower than the company achieved in 2007.

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has asked the National Bank of Ukraine to provide credit to pharmaceutical wholesalers through loans from two state-owned banks – Ukreksimbank and Oshadbank.

According to Metal Courier, Bagliy Coke [BKOK UZ, U/R] had, on October 13, put its coke battery No. 7-bis into hot idling mode. Metal Courier reports that the poor demand was the reason for the decision.

The Metinvest Group got a formal approval for its plan to construct a coal transloading terminal in Sevastopol. The approval came from Ukrinvestexpertise, a state enterprise charged with evaluating various aspects of construction and investment procedures, including ecological and safety.