Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank has put up for sale a debt claim against ESU, the company that owns 92.79% of Ukrtelecom, the country’s largest fixed-line operator. The English-style auction is scheduled for October 6 on the Prozorro.Sales electronic platform, Forbes Ukraine reports.
According to the listing on Prozorro.Sales, the exact starting price is 2,645,429,959.75 hryvnias, excluding VAT. The minimum bid increment is 26.45 million hryvnias, or 1% of the starting price. The auction follows a three-round English format: bidders first submit sealed price offers, then compete by raising their bids over three three-minute rounds.
Entry requires a deposit of 132.27 million hryvnias, or 5% of the starting price. Bids will be accepted until October 5. Only banks and other financial institutions licensed to issue loans can buy the debt, and bidders must have no ties to Russia, Belarus, or internationally sanctioned individuals. If the English auction fails to attract enough bidders, Oschadbank can relist the debt as a Dutch auction with a declining price.
The claim being sold stems from a securities purchase agreement signed in April 2013, under which Oschadbank bought 2 million ESU bonds with a face value of 2 billion hryvnias. ESU defaulted on those bonds, which were due for redemption in March 2017. Oschadbank sued the company over the debt in 2016–2017 and won court rulings ordering repayment. In 2024, a Kyiv commercial court opened bankruptcy proceedings against ESU.
Follow Mediasat on Google News: the latest in TV, telecom and tech
The debt traces back to Ukrtelecom’s privatization. Ukraine’s State Property Fund transferred a 92.79% stake in the operator to ESU back in 2011, in a deal reportedly worth 10.57 billion hryvnias. ESU is linked to banker Denys Horbunenko. Bonds worth 4.6 billion hryvnias helped finance the purchase, about 4 billion of which were bought by Oschadbank and Ukreximbank.
In 2013, Rinat Akhmetov’s SCM Group acquired ESU for $860 million but initially paid only $100 million. SCM said the seller had failed to meet investment obligations tied to Ukrtelecom’s privatization, including a promise to build a dedicated telecom network for government agencies. SCM then tried to unwind the deal and reclaim the $100 million it had paid. The seller’s affiliate, Raga, instead took the dispute to arbitration in London, seeking the remaining $760 million. The tribunal ruled in Raga’s favor, after which the parties reached a settlement over Ukrtelecom.
Since 2017, the State Property Fund has separately been trying to reclaim Ukrtelecom for the state, citing the same unmet investment obligations — ESU was required to invest at least $450 million in network development within five years of the privatization. That dispute remains unresolved. ESU’s main liquid asset is still its Ukrtelecom stake, so the debt sale effectively touches the future of a controlling interest in one of Ukraine’s largest fixed-line operators.
Among ESU’s fourth-tier creditors are Ukrtelecom itself, owed 3.12 billion hryvnias, and SCM Consulting Limited, owed 1.4 billion hryvnias — both linked to Rinat Akhmetov. In 2025, Ukrtelecom’s revenue grew nearly 7% to 5.2 billion hryvnias, while EBITDA rose 31% to over 1.2 billion hryvnias, at a 24% margin.
