A confidentiality agreement with the State Property Fund (SPF) of Ukraine on access to information about the United Mining and Chemical Company JSC (UMCC) put up for sale was signed by 18 companies, including Sergiy Tigipko's TAS Group, BGV Group Management of Hennadiy Butkevych and UMG Investments of Rinat Akhmetov, Nadra.info has reported, citing its sources.

According to the publication, Production and Commercial Company Velta of Andriy Brodsky, Concorde Consulting of Ihor Mazepa, Tinvest of David Bezhuashvili, Stugna Limited of Dmytro Adamovsky and the corporation Must-Ipra of Serhiy Anokhin were among Ukrainian companies which also showed their interest in the facility.

Among the foreign companies that signed documents with the SPF were Arima Minerals FZ LLC (India), Boldman Group International and EAS Advisors LLC (both in the United States), Sojitz Corporation (Japan), Noble Resources (PRC, Hong Kong), Iluka Resources Limited (Australia), Esan Eczacıbaşı Endüstriyel Hammaddeler San. ve Tic. A.Ş. (Turkey), MDC Capital Management LLC and Chun Can Capital Group (both from the UAE) and Agrateo Osaühing (Estonia), Nadra.info said.

According to the publication, applications for the competition were submitted by Stugna Limited, which made a guarantee deposit of UAH 185 million, as well as Tinvest and the British Northland Capital Partners Limited.

Nadra.info said that after studying the documents by the TAS group, Tigipko decided not to submit to the auction, and Concorde said that the company's investor had not confirmed his interest in the auction.

In addition, representatives of UMG Investments and Velta pointed to the insufficient preparation of UMCC for privatization.