The number of professional training companies has now reached an estimated 500 figure. At the same time, their programs have become more sophisticated utilizing the lasted training technologies, reach media and local case studies developed by local business schools such as Kyiv Mohyla Business School (KMBS).

An employer can now order from a menu of custom training programs. Need to know the international trade rules required by Ukraine’s entry into the World Trade Organization? Looking for clever accounting tips for your particular industry? Or, maybe, you need to improve personal time management? Would it be useful to acquire leadership tactics for women? Or, perhaps, you need advice on how to legally get around the agricultural land sale ban?

These are just some of the questions that business trainers can answer in specialized courses or tailor-made in-company training sessions.

For those interested in learning more about the Ukrainian training market and seminars on offer, InvestUkraine.net will shortly provide an updated listing of business training programs and courses available for local and international staff in Ukraine.

Agricultural lands in Ukraine has always been among most wanted in the world. Ukraine boasts to have more than 30% of the world’s most fertile black soil. Nevertheless, the post-Soviet uncertainty of the Ukrainian farmers has resulted in an immense outflow of young labor force from the Ukrainian villages. The Ukrainian government has rooted deeply the seeds of undervaluation of the biggest Ukrainian asset in the minds of the new generation that was raised in villages but now have flown away to look for better fate throughout cities.

At the same time, quite a few Western farmers have come to Ukraine to take advantage of the undervalued land market and close land lease contracts for many thousands of hectares. Most of them plant rapes — the product in a high demand in the current conditions of overvalued oil.

Not all Western farmers in Ukraine follow this mainstream of rapes production. There are examples of organic agricultural production in Ukraine by foreign investors as well which tremendously differ from “modern”, chemical methods of agricultural cultivation.

Demand for organic products grow at a similar pace next to the rapes while the premium pricing for organic wheat and barley are even more commercially interesting. Yet, not very many banks in Ukraine and around the world understand the concept and often refuse in crediting organic farms. The major reason for that is the banks’ combined interest in the farming sector which is distributed between direct crediting to farmers and trade financing to agricultural vendors of chemical supplies and Genetically Modified seed materials.

In the conditions when land can only be leased in Ukraine, many Western farmers tend to concentrate on making quick returns while being backed up by the banks and continue harvesting rapes which exhaust the fertile soils quickly. The lack of the political will  and strategic insight of the Ukrainian government in the national agricultural policy only stimulates the foreign farmers to get the high returns without thinking of the future condition of the lands which they do not own.

Ukraine has joined WTO this year - a serious move towards wider international markets which has also opened the doors to even more genetically modified crops to be planted throughout Ukrainian farms at lower rates but much more serious long-term risks to the health of the Ukrainian fertile lands.

Investing in land in Ukraine is extremely interesting in the conditions of a growing demand for primary food products. But any land can only be productive if long-term sustainability plan is in place which is only possible when land can be owned and easily traded.

The Ukrainian Rail monopoly UkrZaliznytsya has been checked by the State Audit Department amid the monopoly’s announced plan to gradually increase prices for train tickets and cargo rail services. The first increase of 5% came effective as of 1st June this year. UkrZaliznytsya claimed it was loosing money due to its democratic tickets pricing.

The results of the State Audit Department showed that the money lost by UkrZaliznytsya was not due to low ticket prices. Numerous facts of embezzlement and mismanagement of the company have now been reveled. One of the major?  facts of embezzlement was related to financial reports produced by Ernst & Young.

Ernst & Young Ukraine is one of the four major global audit companies and it has been operating in Ukraine since 1991.

But even though Ukraine’s hosting of the upcoming EURO-2012 football championship has raised interest in the market, the new projects are meant to fill growing overall demand and offer higher quality in a country where absolute majority of hotels are renovated premises from from the Soviet days.

The Rezidor Hotel Group of Belgium, which already operates one hotel in the country, Kyiv’s Radisson SAS, announced the most ambitious expansion plans of the three hotel chains. The Belgian company plans to open eleven Radisson hotels and sixteen Park Inn hotels throughout the country according to Darren Blanchard, business development director for the Rezidor Hotel Group. The Redizor company also operates the five-plus-star Regent and five-star Missoni hotel brands.

Rezidor plans operating the Ukrainian hotels under management contracts with local partners.

All four of Redizor’s hotel brands will operate in Kyiv while Radisson SAS and Park Inn hotels will be opened across major Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Yalta and Lviv. Park Inn hotels will be also opened in other smaller Ukrainian cities where touristic attractions will continue to raise demand for quality hotel services.

Accor of France is currently working with Ukrainian business partners to build its five-star Sofitel brand hotel and two three-star Ibis hotels in Kyiv. Accor plans to build four-star hotels in Ukraine’s cities with over one million residents which are Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odesa and Kharkiv.
The InterContinental Hotels Group is backing two hotel projects in Kyiv, a Holiday Inn and a five-star InterContinental hotel. Developer Toronto Kyiv plans to complete construction of the Holiday Inn in 2009. In addition to the InterContinental,?  a five?­star Fairmont brand hotel will also appear in Kyiv by the end of 2009 at an investment of more than $150 million.

More than 1.5 million tourists visited Ukraine in 2007 and over 2 million are expected this year. More business travelers are also arriving, in line with larger inflows of foreign investment since the Orange Revolution of 2004 and with the growing market opportunities in all industries and across Ukraine.

More than 100 hotels currently operate in Kyiv, but most of them do not even match the 3-star level servicing. Kyiv now offers only four hotels with services stated to be at the fivestar level:?  the Hyatt Regency, Premier Palace, Radisson SAS Hotel and Opera Hotel. Recently opened four-star Riviera hotel is probably the only one to fill the gap between the fivestars and the Soviet style hotels in Kyiv.

Investment Consulting business in Ukraine has grown rapidly in the past few years with more CFA’s, MBA’s and LLM’s leading professional teams of financial analysts and commercial lawyers and providing ground market research, feasibility and due diligence studie. A profile of a Ukrainian-native Investment consultant would normally include a Western business education diploma, few years of financial, industry or legal experience in Ukraine, as well as abroad including Russia, a wide networking base within Ukrainian commercial and official offices and a solid reputation in the market.

InvestUkraine is launching its independent research of Investment consulting companies in Ukraine to provide a better preview of the leading investment consultants with their possible specializations by industry or geographic region.

If you represent an Investment consulting company and would like to participate in our research, do not hesitate to contact us before May 1st, 2008 in order to participate in the listing.

If you are an investor considering investment consultants in Ukraine and would like to receive pre-publication sneak preview, you are welcome to contact us anytime.

The press office of the Volksbank has confirmed the Group’s intention to acquire another Ukrainian asset. The investment amount has not been revealed though. The VBI’s representatives stressed out that following the world financial crisis erupted last summer, prices for financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe have stabilized.

The Volksbannk International Group acquired the Western Ukrainian Elektronbank for EUR 57 million in the beginning of 2007. And, to continue expansion in the Ukrainian market, the Group is now looking for a financial institution which would balance out the geographic representation of the Group in the industrial central and eastern regions of Ukraine.

Volksbank International Group have other assets outside Austria. It controls ten banks in Central and Eastern Europe including two in Bosnia, Hungary, Romanian, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Ukraine. The Group’s assets by 2006 results were EUR 6.7 billion. In November 2007 VBI had 524 branches and over 5 thousand employees with the balance amount reaching EUR 9.9 billion.

1. Alta Capital: Investment consulting
2. Alta Fund: Private equity investment in Ukrainian real estate
3. Alta Industrial: Representation of top-flight producers of building materials and concrete; manufacture of engineering palettes
4. Alta Exclusive: Construction of luxury mahogany yachts of prime quality custom projects
5. Alta Securities: Providing of access to the leading trade houses worldwide
6. Alta Event: Event management
7. WhereToStay.In.UA: Managing of top class apartments in Kiev

The fast food market reality may soon change in Ukraine though with stronger international competition from Pizza Hut, Burger Kind and KFC which all find their place in the touristic areas all over the world.

AmRest Holdings, a Polish franchise operator of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Burger King in Central and Eastern Europe, is set to purchase a 30 percent stake in Russian fast food chain Kroshka Kartoshka by the end of the month.

Ukraine is one of the most attractive markets for fast food development with popular chains still in shortage across Ukraine’s vast territory. With purchasing power of the Ukrainian population growing rapidly, fast food chains are in the first line to gain millions of customers.

Pizza Hut has extremely high potential of the three new prospective franchises but only if they dare to compete well with the high level of creativity of local players offering traditional Ukrainian food at much lower prices than a most unsophisticated pizza.

As with the other acquisitions, the Intesa Sanpaolo purchase gives its new owner a share in Ukraine’s relatively small, but fast-growing emerging market. “With this acquisition, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group continues implementing its strategy of selective expansion in central and southeastern Europe (CSEE) and the Mediterranean basin,” Intesa said in a Feb. 4 statement. Through local retail and commercial subsidiaries, Intesa is already represented in 12 CSEE and Mediterranean countries, serving about 7.2 million customers.

Pravex Bank was sold by Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy and his direct relatives. It is a commercial bank dedicated to retail banking and serving SME’s and household clients. Pravex network includes about 560 branches throughout Ukraine.

Intesa’s purchase also marks the third significant cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) deal struck so far in 2008.

The three deals give Ukraine an early 2008 boost in foreign direct investment (FDI), which now has reached?  $3.5 bil, which is almost half of total FDI accumulated last year. Experts of the ING Bank forecast at least $9 billion in FDI in Ukraine in 2008. “The former Pravex Bank owners may bring their funds into the country to invest in new projects, and the new owners will seek to develop their companies further by investing additional capital,” an ING Bank statement said.

A previous deal in which Intesa attempted to buy a larger bank in Ukraine, Ukrsotsbank, failed in early 2007. At the same time, Intesa’s main rival in Italy, UniCredit Bank, moved swiftly to snap up Ukrsotsbank, ranked as one of Ukraine’s top five banks. UniCredit’s $2.2 billion deal of acquiring Ukrsotsbank was done on Jan. 23.

Competition between foreign banks for a slice of the Ukrainian banking industry is fierce, experts said, with several large, influential European banks vying for the same assets simultaneously. The next Ukrainian bank likely to be sold is Kreditprombank, ranked 13th by net assets. Investment banks in Kyiv claim that Kreditprombank is being targeted by France’s Societe Generale, and two Greek banks, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus.

Societe Generale was considered as the leading bidder for Kreditprombank, but the financial scandal in France could cause the group to postpone.

The high prices paid in recent cross-border bank acquisitions give a serious motivation to other big retail banks such as Rodovid, Ukrgazbank, and Megabank to follow the example.

But just as her government adopted conditions on Jan. 30 for the Odesa Portside auction, which experts said could fetch as much as $1 billion, President Viktor Yushchenko played a political gambit, in the view of experts, and criticized the sale??™s handling. Last week, the Presidential Secretariat criticized the Odesa Portside sale terms because they could allegedly allow the Ukrainian government to break agreements with the investor and unilaterally re-nationalize the plant, all without a court ruling. (Which is no more than a speculation since the constitutional legal procedures are not subject to any governmental decrees).

State Property Fund officials, responsible for organizing auctions, said the sale of a 99.57 percent stake in Odesa Portside is still scheduled to begin this month, with opening bids between $500 and $700 million.

The privatization of Ukrtelecom, which could raise another $1 billion, is expected to commence later this year.

The Odesa Portside sale is expected to be the most expensive since the $4.8 billion auction of steel mill Kryvorizhstal in 2005.

Strategically located at the Black Sea, the port is supplied with raw materials by pipeline, giving it competitive advantages over other chemical plants in Ukraine. Odesa Portside is Ukraine’s leading producer of nitrogen fertilizer and ammonia.