Rise

completed

Closed Joint Stock Company Rise (Rise or the company) is a leader in providing integrated agribusiness services and inputs to farms in Ukraine. Under a one-stop-shop concept, Rise distributes a full-range of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, crop protection products and agricultural machinery/spare parts, which are packaged together with value-added services such as agronomic consultancy, product off-take, and transportation, to more than 6,500 farms with average size of about 7,000 hectares in Ukraine, Russia and Moldova. In the past two years, Rise financed the construction of a 42,000 tons grain silo, acquisition of the seed plant, purchase of fertilizer blending equipment and some capital investments in distribution warehouses with medium-term and short-term debt as long-term credit was not available in Ukraine. The project is to improve Rise’s balance sheet by refinancing existing debt with longer maturities. The total IFC investment will be $10 million.- Corporate Operations:Rise owns 69 branches/distribution facilities in Ukraine as well as recently established subsidiaries in Russia and Moldova. Most of these facilities are previously state-owned plants and located in industrial zones. Rise purchases these bankrupt plants, and renovates them for its use. According to Ukrainian law, all the industrial lands belong to the state. Rise only purchases the rights of land usage from the local government. The various facilities are located inside industrial zones or in the rural area along the major highway. Most of the facilities also have access to rail road system. Since these previously state-owned facilities are much larger than Rise’s requirement for its present operation scale, Rise leases out significant portions of the land/office/warehouse in most of the facilities. Rise is planning to purchase more bankrupt facilities in the area that it would like to operate. There are no resettlement issues related to previous and future land purchase.The major operations of Rise’s facilities include:Storage for seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides;Transportation services for seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides; and Agricultural machinery sales and maintenance.