Smart Holding in 2022. One of Ukraine’s largest investment groups sums up last year

When a full-scale war broke out, the Smart Holding group outlined its key priorities: to keep their people safe, save their business and support their country. Despite huge asset losses, Smart Holding enterprises paid almost 3.7 billion hryvnias in taxes and fees to the budget and donated over a billion hryvnias of social assistance to communities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

During this time, Smart Holding followed through several risk management plans, which allowed the group to keep operating and contribute to the country’s economy. In the future, this will let the group quickly launch initiatives to restore Ukraineʼs damaged infrastructure on the necessary scale.

Specifically, the group is now actively developing the gas production sector – one of the important elements of Ukraineʼs energy independence. Despite the temporary suspension of production at its deposits in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions due to Russian aggression, in autumn Smart Energy fully resumed operations of its enterprises.

During 2022, Smart Holding enterprises paid almost 3.7 billion hryvnias in taxes and fees to the budget and donated over a billion hryvnias of social assistance to communities and the Armed Forces of Ukraine

In 2022, Smart Energy also completed the modernization of the temporary metering and separation plant, which significantly increased the production of liquefied propane-butane. Also, despite the wartime risks, the company is drilling a new well in the fields of the Poltava region and is planning a few similar projects. Ultimately, increasing the volume of Ukrainian gas production is crucial for Ukraineʼs energy independence.

Metinvest, one of Smart Holding’s enterprises, became one of the largest suppliers of special steel and protective ammunition for the Ukrainian army. The company also started the «Saving Life» humanitarian project, which has already helped more than 400,000 Ukrainians. Thanks to the initiative, more than 4,000 tons of food products and necessities were delivered from abroad during the 10 months of the war. Also, the project team provided hospitals with medicines, equipment, and consumables worth more than 240,000 euros.

«Saving Life» also covers prosthetics and rehabilitation of wounded Ukrainians and psychological rehabilitation of women and children. Currently, 28 Ukrainians are participating in the prosthetics program: seven have already received training and permanent prostheses, and the rest are undergoing treatment. In addition, the first 140 women and their children underwent a psycho-emotional stabilization program under the «Unbreakable Mother» project from «Saving Life» and the Masha Foundation.

Unfortunately, enterprises in Mykolaiv and Ochakiv do not work due to enemy shelling and mining of the water area. Also, the «Naval» terminal is not operating, some shopping malls of the Smart Urban Solutions company have been destroyed, and certain enterprises are located in temporarily occupied territories. The Park Inn hotel on Olympic Square in Kyiv is also closed.

Russian attacks also damaged Metinvest’s assets in Mariupol and Avdiivka.

After deoccupation, Metinvest is planning to return to Mariupol and resume operations, building a new, more modern and ecological industry. Over the year, Metinvest sent more than 3.1 billion hryvnias to strengthen the countryʼs defense capabilities and support civilians, and 1.7 billion went to the army’s needs.

Some businesses required relocation, such as «Soton», the largest producer of polycarbonate sheets in Ukraine, which was moved from Dnipro to Uzhhorod. The company is dynamically developing and expanding to the European market. More than 80% of the companyʼs sales are exported to the EU, USA and other countries. Preservation of export businesses not only grants jobs in Ukraine, but also creates export profits in foreign currency, which is an additional resource for the countryʼs budget.

«Veres» company continues to operate, despite the loss of one of its agricultural units due to Russian occupation and electricity disruption. The company transferred several hundred thousand food units to support citizens, territorial defense and volunteers.

Kherson Shipyard of the Smart Maritime Group (SMG) shipbuilding association, which was under temporary occupation, is already maintaining its infrastructure capacity to provide the population of Kherson with electricity. After the deoccupation, more than 2 million hryvnias were allocated to restore electrical substations.

Along with the country fighting for victory, the business is also fighting for survival. The Smart Holding team emphasizes the importance of the fact that Ukrainian business already needs significant investments for recovery.

To enhance transparency and management standards, in 2022 the Smart Holding group continued the restructuring and development of the corporate governance project, which was started in 2013, and completed the last round of this process. The Smart Holding group also completed the transfer of its assets to the Smart Trust and Step Trust.

In the future, Smart Holding sees its contribution to the development of the economy in several directions: the revival of the metallurgical industry and its renewal in accordance with the principles of decarbonization, an increase in the volume of Ukrainian gas production, and plans to develop industrial parks. Additionally, there are plans for the agricultural products processing projects, which goal is to further export products with high added value. Currently, the group together with Western investors is already developing new ideas for the reindustrialization of the country.