Sayenko Kharenko has acted as legal counsel to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) on providing a USD 30 million secured financing to Astarta, one of the leading agro-industrial holdings in Ukraine.
The financing aims to modernise existing production facilities, introduce climate-smart agricultural practices to increase business resilience and secure sufficient working capital financing. These measures will reduce production and energy costs, enhance productivity and operational efficiency, and improve energy efficiency.
The package includes a USD 21 million EBRD loan, and a USD 9 million sustainability-linked loan funded by the Clean Technology Fund (CTF).
This transaction marks the first in Ukraine, supported by the EBRD High Climate Impact programme for the Corporate Sector funded by the CTF. The innovation of the loan is its pricing, which is linked to climate change-related targets.
Astarta is a large vertically integrated Ukrainian agro-industrial holding, a public European company operating around 220,00 hectares of leased arable land, five sugar plants, a soybean processing factory, a biogas facility and dairy farms.
The EBRD is Ukraine’s most prominent international financial investor. The Bank has a cumulative 18.4 billion EUR investment in 535 projects nationwide.
Sayenko Kharenko team was led by partner Igor Lozenko and included senior associate Denis Nakonechnyi, associate Vladyslava Mitsai, and junior associate Yevgen Koval.
