The TAS Group plans to invest $250-300 million in the chapter capital of banks, insurance companies, and other assets it holds in the financial sector; it also aims to expand its land bank and strengthen its grain storage operations in the agricultural sector, is actively investing in real estate development, and is exploring opportunities in logistics and port infrastructure, the group's founder and head, Serhiy Tihipko, has said.
"We are currently the largest private owner in the Ukrainian financial sector. And we are accelerating our pace here. Therefore, whether we want to or not, we will have to invest in authorized capital. I think we'll invest somewhere between $250 million and $300 million just to increase authorized capital," Tihipko said at the Concorde Capital investment conference, which the investment firm held for the first time since 2019 last week in Kyiv.
"As for everything else, we'll explore our options. We're interested in agriculture. We'd be happy to purchase 20,000 to 25,000 hectares right now. We're expanding our grain storage facilities," the founder added.
He noted that the group has now begun actively investing in real estate development.
"We've started a 220,000-square-meter project in Obolon. We've purchased an additional five hectares for the same project. In 2027, we'll start a 350,000 (square meters) project on the Left Bank. These are fairly large investments," the businessman said.
According to him, the group is also looking into logistics and port infrastructure, and Tihipko himself has personally visited Chornomorsk.
"I can say that I don't really like the sector: in my opinion, it's overvalued; everyone has gotten used to some kind of abnormal rate that existed at the start of the war. That won't happen again," the group's owner said.
He said the group constantly analyzes projects "every year, every day."
"We're sitting and waiting for a good, juicy deal to come along. We wanted to buy an insurance company (MetLife), but the Poles (PZU) beat us to it. That's okay; we'll wait. I told (Richard) Branson that deals are like a rail bus: one leaves, another arrives. We'll wait for the next one," Tihipko said.
The TAS Group is one of the largest financial and industrial groups in Ukraine, operating in the banking sector, insurance, railcar manufacturing, metallurgy, logistics, the agricultural sector, the food industry, the production of packaging materials, and real estate. Among others, it includes TAScombank, Universal Bank (mono), and Idea Bank.
CEO of the agricultural holding "TAS Agro" Oleh Zapletniuk reported earlier this year that the strategic plan calls for expanding the land bank from the current 80,000 hectares to 100,000 hectares by the end of 2026. "Our next step is to increase it to 120,000 hectares, but that will be by 2028," he said.
