Ukrainian holding with a number of assets in several key sectors of the economy – mining and metallurgy, shipbuilding, agribusiness, construction and production of building materials, financial sector, machine-building.
The group accumulated large stakes in Inguletskiy mining and processing integrated Works, Makeyevka Steel, and Promet Steel, a Bulgarian rolling plant, and then in 2007 merged these assets with the metallurgical assets of Metinvest, part of the SCM business empire of Rinat Akhmetov, a billionaire and member of the Party of Regions. As a result of the merger, Smart-holding became the owner of over 25% of shares in the enlarged Metinvest. In addition, his holding controls OJSC Yakovlevsky Mine in the Belgorod region of Russia.
Among the assets of Smart-Holding
- in shipbuilding – Kherson Shipyard JSC, Black Sea Shipyard JSC (Nikolaev);
- in agribusiness and foodstuffs – Veres Group and Kalitiansky Bacon;
- in construction – CJSC Krivorozhaglostroy and Eugene LLC (this very company was engaged in the construction of the shopping center Troitsky in Kiev, due to delays in demolition of which the sports complex “Olympic” could be deprived of the right to host the final matches of Euro 2012);
- In the production of building materials – the Balaklava Rudoupravlenie im. In the field of building materials – JSC Balaklava Mining Authority named after Gorky, CJSC Evpatoria plant of building materials, CJSC Saki plant of building materials; JSC Zaporizhnerudprom, CJSC Turstroy, which owns licenses for the development of several granite and sand deposits;
- in finance – bank Unex and insurance company CJSC Industrial and Insurance Alliance;
- in engineering – Dnepropress plant.
Smart-Holding also controls and develops the port complex “Ochakov”. The enterprises of the group employ about 20 thousand people. In 2013, co-owners of Smart-Holding agreed with VTB to acquire the former subsidiary Bank of Moscow in Ukraine, but the deal fell through. Novynskyi Vadym most valuable asset is the Smart Holding group, which has offices in most regions of Ukraine. The group’s interests include the mining and metallurgical complex, shipbuilding, agro-industrial complex, machine-building, agricultural sector, mining industry (production of non-metallic materials), real estate, finance and insurance.
In an interview with a Ukrainian publication Novynskyi Vadym said that he considers Rinat Akhmetov his best partner. The oligarchs have merged some assets. For instance, Smart-Holding owns a 25% share in the metallurgical group “Metinvest” (the rest belongs to Akhmetov). The agrarian company NarvaEast Holding is also a joint asset of Novynskyi Vadym (25%) and Akhmetov (75%) and is one of the ten largest agricultural holdings in the country in terms of the amount of cultivated land. Despite such a number of businesses, Novynskyi Vadym’s fortunes decreased by as much as 22% year-on-year. This is directly related to the work of one of Ukraine’s largest private holdings, which lost profits because of falling world prices for steel products.
Moreover, Novynskyi Vadym owns troubled assets. One of these is the JSC “Black Sea Shipyard”, which deliberately brought to bankruptcy Balaklava ore management, which also belongs to the oligarch. As of November 1, 2019, according to OpenDataBot, the tax debt was 116,696,160 UAH. Also, the structure of the businessman, which owns the Amstor retail chain, was declared bankrupt by the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Administrative Court on October 3, 2019 and owed state-owned Ukreximbank 1.52 billion UAH, and Ahmetov’s bank FUMB another 1.74 billion UAH. If you want more information about the oligarch, read more.