Kernel Holding has sold agricultural operations in southern Ukraine for $7 Ml through its daughter company within a previously announced strategy of giving up remotely located land parcels. According to the company’s notice on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, following this deal the land bank of Kernel amounts to 405 Th ha. In the spring, Kernel’s board chairman and largest shareholder Andriy Verevsky declared an intention to optimize the land bank in Ukraine by selling some 20-25 Th ha of land. As of April, after the purchase of a company leasing 108 Th ha, the holding’s total cultivated area expanded to 422 Th ha. Then the company reported the sale of a Zaporizhzhia-region farm (i.e. lying far from Kernel’s core assets) with leased 6 Th ha of land for $4.4 Ml and the purchase of a farming enterprise with 1.5 Th ha in Khmelnytsky region for $1 Ml. Kernel is a vertically integrated company operating in Ukraine’s agricultural sector since 1994. Kernel produces sugar, sunflower oil, distributes bottled sunoil in the country under the Shchedry Dar, Stozhar, Chumak Zolota brands, exports sunoil and grains, and provides grains and oilseeds storage services at its elevators. Kernel posted a net profit of $69.1 Ml in the first half of FY 2013, or down 25% year-on-year. Its revenue for the review period grew by 49.5% to $1.47 Bl.

UkrAgroConsult