This is the opinion of the company's former CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi.
"This will happen this year, I really hope so. And it will be a very good signal for the market if the power system operator is financially recovering. This is a signal that everything will be fine in the system one way or another. If we continue to pay off debts in the balancing market, then there will be a positive outcome," V. Kudrytskyi said during a broadcast with the former NEURC member Olha Babiy on the KSHDU Media YouTube channel.
"The company has retained the current management system, corporate governance has not been destroyed, the Supervisory Board has been restored, and the competitive selection for the position of the Chairman of the Board is now being finalised. These processes are important for restoring trust, and after that we can expect to be able to raise funds and solve the problem of restructuring the bonds and get out of the default, which is more technical than systemic," V. Kudrytskyi clarified.
According to him, the default is one of the elements of the picture that frightens investors with some uncertainty, and this, in turn, leaves an imprint on their interest in rebuilding the power system.
The former CEO of Ukrenergo specified that in the summer of 2024, the company was already close to concluding an agreement to raise financing for settlements in certain amounts with bondholders, but certain events (most likely, he was referring to his dismissal – ER) did not allow this to happen.
"After the state of Ukraine reached an agreement with its creditors, Ukrenergo could not offer its investors better terms. Since these conditions were quite tough, the only thing that could interest them, why they could go for, for example, a certain debt write-off, was to offer to partially pay in real money. Less, but with real money. It was a strategy of debt restructuring. We had a very powerful Western bank or financial organisation ready to provide this money. But then something happened in September, and this process stopped. And the company was forced to pay interest or otherwise restructure its debts," the former head of the NPC clarified the situation.
As reported by Energoreforma, Ukrenergo declared a technical default, temporarily suspending payments on debt obligations under the $825 million green sustainable development bonds issued in 2021, starting November 9, 2024.
