Inkerman Trade House LLC (Kyiv), a Ukrainian division of Inkerman International, seeks to boost sparkling wine sales by 2.8 times in 2016, to 2.2 million bottles. “We seek to boost production of sparkling wine from 800,000 bottles last year to 2.2 million bottles. We think that these ambitious goals are realizable: demand on our products is high,” Director General of Inkerman Trade House Hanna Horkun said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
She said that the company purchased some wine materials in Moldova for production of sparkling wine, as these materials were not present on the Ukrainian market.
“We have four types of sparkling wine and with plans to produce 2.2 million bottles it was not easy to find high-quality materials. I think that we bought all high-quality materials Ukraine had and bought additional good wine materials in Moldova, which, unfortunately, were not present on the Ukrainian market,” she said.
Inkerman Trade House in 2015 sold 864,500 decaliters of still wine and 123,580 decaliters of sparkling wine. Sales of sparkling wine increased by 52% compared to 2014.
The company’s share of the Ukrainian wine-making market has increased from 12.7% in 2013 to 16% in 2016. This is linked to the absence of Crimean wine and the increase in the price of imported wine.
Horkun said that before 2014 all production facilities of Inkerman International were located in Crimea. After the annexation of the peninsula, Inkerman International AB (Sweden) registered subsidiary Inkerman Trade House headquartered in Kyiv and transferred bottling of still wine to Tavria Cognac House in Nova Kakhovka in Kherson region. Sparkling wine initially was bottled in Odesa at the facilities of Odesavynprom.
“Under Ukrainian legislation we do not have a chance to cooperate with our own Crimean asset where shareholders invested over EUR 40 million. Over 2,000 our employees remain in Crimea. It is clear that we are responsible for our company, investment of shareholders and employees,” she said.
The winery in Crimea is neither a contractor nor asset in ownership in Ukraine. It is a separate structural unit of the holding. The Crimean plant continues operation and selling its products in Crimea, Russia and China.
Shareholders in Inkerman International AB are HTT BWH Holding Ltd (Finland, 40%), Eksen Investments Limited (Cyprus, 40%) and Board Chairman Valeriy Shamotiy manages Eksen’s shares and Lorimer Ventures Limited (Cyprus, 20%) and U.S. Horizon Capital manages Lorimer’s shares. (interfax.com.ua)
