Kryvorizhstal to be sold for $2 billion
Kiev announced today that had it determined the starting price for a 93.02 percent stake in Ukraine's largest steelmaker, Kryvorizhstal. The mill is up for privatization once again after last's year tender was declared invalid by a Ukrainian court earlier this year. The UAH 10 billion ($2 billion) starting price for this new privatization tender is more than twice the price at which mill was originally sold last year. Further more, the terms of privatization stipulate that the winning bidder must invest $2.3 billion in the mill between 2006 and 2013 for unspecified improvements. Certain analysts claim that the starting price is exaggerated, especially when the current political and economical instability in Ukraine is taken into account. As previously reported by SteelOrbis, Kryvorizhstal was sold to two Ukrainian businessmen, Viktor Pinchuk and Rinat Akhmetov, for $800 million in 2004 even though foreign companies had bid nearly twice that for the mill. However, upon complaints filed by various parties, a Ukrainian court ruled that the privatization of Kryvorizhstal was illegal.