4 October 2022

Because of the war in Ukraine main logistic routes of Nibulon are destroyed, basing on our estimation because of the war Nibulon suffered the most vs. other big Ukrainian grains exporters.

First of all we should note that before the war Nibulon operating activity was as follows: grains origination around its river grain terminals (on Dnipro and Pivdenniy Buh rivers), then its transportation to port terminal in Mykolaiv and transshipment to the vessels.

Each of this logistic chain links suffered because of the war – several river silos remained on occupied territory, river transshipment by barges is not possible, port in Mykolaiv is still blocked.

Even opening of grains corridor out of Odessa, Chornomorsk and Pivdenniy has not helped much – Nibulon is not able to use its logistic chain which was its main competitive advantage and to which Nibulon invested more than $2 bln.

From financial perspective from one side such situation means lower necessity in working capital financing needs, from another – it is clear that operating profits (if any) of the company will not be sufficient for proper investment portfolio debt servicing, so restructuring is absolutely necessary.

According to information from Latifundist, total debt portfolio of Nibulon stands at about $500M.

As per latest available financial report of the company, its revenues in Y2020 made UAH 26bln, EBITDA – UAH 1.7 bln, debt – UAH 11 bln. By our estimation, in Y2021 operating and financial performance of the group improved, but the level of debt still remains high.

After Nibulon owner Oleksiy Vadaturskiy was killed during russian missile attack on Mykolaiv, the company is managed by his son Andriy.