Oasis CIS, a company owned by two Russian businessmen, plans to acquire Radomyshl beer factory from Ukrainian businessman Petro Poroshenko, according to a report by Thomson Financial Mergers & Acquisitions.
The Kyiv Post was not able to confirm a sale had taken place. But the acquisition price was estimated by analysts to be below $40 million and could be part of a bigger regional expansion plan on the part of Oasis.
Oasis is owned by Yevgeny Kashler and Alexander Lifshits. The Radomyshl brewery is based in Zhytomyr Oblast.
Anton Usov, a spokesperson for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Ukraine, said his bank is mulling the possibility of investing into Oasis. But he was not aware of any acquisition targets in Ukraine that Oasis could have closed.
Kashler and Lifshits are the founders of Russia’s Ivan Taranov Breweries, which was sold to Dutch beer giant Heineken in 2005 for $560 million.
Beer has become increasingly popular in recent years among Ukrainians, even challenging the supremacy of the traditional tipple – vodka. Ukraine’s beer market is estimated approximately at $3 billion annually by Journal.Beer, a Kharkiv-based industry magazine.
With the exception of Obolon, the market is dominated by giant multinational breweries – Sun InBev, Carlsberg Group and SABMiller. Combined, these four market players control over 95 percent of the market.
Poroshenko owns a diversified portfolio of assets and serves as supervisory board chairman of Ukraine’s central bank.