Cascade Investment Fund sold stocks of several large companies with assets in Ukraine. It was the fund’s pre-war strategy.
During the last three years, from 2020 to 2023, Cascade has exited, in particular, such large companies as Kernel, JKX Oil&Gas and Ukrnaftoburinnya.
Cascade Investment Fund sold the first part of Kernel shares on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2020. The second – during share buy-backs announced by Kernel. The third – in 2023, during delisting. It was the only opportunity to get liquidity, despite the price being almost three times lower than before the great war, said CEO of Cascade Investment Fund Vitaliy Khomutynnik. “It is not so easy to exit a company with such a stake as ours, given the limited trading limit of shares on the stock exchange,” he said. “Therefore, any options, including delisting, were acceptable for us.”
Until recently, Cascade’s largest asset was Ukrnaftoburinnya, Ukrainian second private gas production company in terms of production volume. “We agreed on a deal [on exiting the company] at the end of 2021,” said Cascade Investment Fund Financial Director Kostiantyn Viushynskyi. – Due to the beginning of the war, the deal was greatly transformed. As a result, we exited the company for half the amount we entered, but there was a large upside in the form of undistributed dividends,” he said. The package was sold to a Ukrainian businessman, added Viushynskyi.
Currently, Cascade Investment Fund is focused on real estate and private equity projects in Europe, as well as building a fund of funds structure.
Source: Forbes.ua
