The head of the State Property Fund of Ukraine, Dmytro Natalukha, said this in an interview with LIGA.net. He did not disclose the name of the potential investor, but noted that it is a large public company specializing in the aluminum business. According to market data, among the aluminum producers represented on the NYSE, the most likely contender may be the US company Alcoa.
According to Mr. Natalukha, representatives of the State Property Fund have already held negotiations with a potential investor in London. At the same time, he emphasized that public international corporations are much more cautious about investing in Ukraine because of the ongoing war.
“They are large and public, so the chances that they will eventually decide to enter the Ukrainian jurisdiction during the war are much lower than private companies,” – said the head of the FGIU.
Earlier, the State Property Fund said that the main obstacle to the sale of Mykolaiv Alumina Refinery is not the debt obligations of the company, but military risks. The agency expects to attract a strategic foreign investor, who will be able to provide additional protection of the asset due to its international status. The United States and India were mentioned among potentially interested countries.
What was the “object of interest” before the war?
Before the full-scale war, the Nikolaev Alumina Refinery was one of the key enterprises of the aluminum industry of Ukraine and the main supplier of raw materials for the enterprises of the Russian group “Rusal” controlled by Oleg Deripaska. The plant produced alumina, the main raw material for aluminum production.
The process of transferring the plant to the state lasted almost two years. In July 2022, the court transferred NGZ’s corporate rights to the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA). However, the agency was actually unable to take the enterprise under management because it required the consent of the Russian owner, which could be considered as collaborationism by law enforcement agencies.
In June 2023, the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court confirmed the decision to confiscate a number of Deripaska’s assets, including the Nikolaev Alumina Refinery. The nationalization process was finally completed on March 20, 2024, after which the State Property Fund of Ukraine became the sole founder of the company.
After the outbreak of a full-scale war, the plant’s operations were effectively halted. Until 2022, the work of NGZ was provided by about 5 thousand employees, including the staff of the enterprise itself, service and IT companies. Currently, about 400 employees remain at the facility to maintain critical infrastructure and environmental safety.
