Emerging & Frontier Markets Insights

In this post I will present some insights about the Ukrainian economy from the latest macroeconomic research reports prepared by the Ukrainian investment banks and presented to general public.

Analysts from SP Advisors did a good job analyzing current situation in the Ukrainian economy and giving forecasts for 2015. However, their official UAH/USD exchange rate forecast is overly optimistic. They forecast on average 17.50 UAH/USD rate, while the National Bank of Ukraine already set a 27.76 UAH/USD rate as of March 2, 2015. Given current and forecast level of Ukraine’s foreign currency reserves, ongoing war and declining export volumes, we should expect further depreciation of the Ukrainian currency.

The total amount of M&A deals in Ukraine constituted not more than USD 2 bln according to preliminary results, which is 3 times less than in 2013.

The biggest M&A deal in the Ukrainian market was the sale of network of 240 gas stations and 6 oil plants on the balance of affiliate company LUKOIL-Ukraine by the Russian company LUKOIL to the Austrian AMIC Energy Management for USD 300 mln.