The FINANCIAL -- On January 19th, 2012,
a ceremonial event honoring the signing of a long term investment loan
from Citibank to ASTARTA took place, from U.S.-Ukraine Business Council.
The five-year loan for $25 million is a part of a global lending program of Citibank and U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation. ASTARTA is among first Ukrainian companies to benefit from this program.
The company will use the loan facility to modernize existing production capacities including acquisition of modern equipment and machinery.
Astarta-Kyiv is an agri-industrial holding and one of the leaders in the Ukrainian sugar sector. We focus our operations on production and sales of sugar from sugar beet, sugar by-products and related services. In 2011 production season we strengthened our leading position as the biggest Ukrainian sugar producer with 16% share of domestic sugar production.
Our agricultural business primarily aimed at the growing of the sugar beet by agricultural companies controlled by our Group which is the main raw material for our sugar plants. Thus, we created the value chain on the basis of the vertical integration of business.
Due to the necessity of crop rotation in cultivation of the sugar beet we are also involved in growing and selling various grain and oilseed crops. Cattle farming is our additional, non-core activity.
As of the date hereof, we are a group of companies, with a parent Group company established under the laws of the Netherlands and with all production assets based in Ukraine . These assets are controlled by our Ukrainian company LLC Firm "Astarta-Kyiv", which in turn controls our production units.
These units consist of sugar plants and agricultural companies with 240 thousand hectares under lease, as well as one mixed fodder plant. The Ukrainian parent company provides centralized sales. All of our operations are located in the Poltava, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr Oblasts of Ukraine . Our Ukrainian headquarters is in Kyiv.
Since August 2006 ASTARTA's shares are listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
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