IFC to provide a new loan to Agrofusion?

Ukrainian press revealed in early May that the International Finance Corporation (IFC) could provide a long-term corporate loan of USD17 million to the largest tomato paste and industrial tomato producer in Ukraine, the Agrofusion Group. According to a posting on the website of IFC, the funds are provided to finance the company’s 2018-2019 expansion and debt refinancing program.
The total cost of the project is $30 million. The project is pending approval.
The Agrofusion Group plans to plant and process 630,000 tonnes of tomatoes in 2018, including 9,900 tonnes of organic tomatoes. According to a posting on the group’s website, in 2017, it started producing organic tomato paste. “Last week all growing divisions of Agrofusion has begun tomato seedling transplanting. Favorable weather conditions and timely field preparation allowed to start the transplanting according to the schedule. Transplanting will continue till the end of May,” the company said.

IFC said that this will be the third project with Agrofusion. Agrofusion Group, founded in 2007, belongs to businessman Serhiy Sypko. Agrofusion includes three tomato paste production plants with the processing capacity of about 750,000 tonnes of tomatoes per season, as well as farms in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, processing 25,000 hectares of irrigated land, and two greenhouse farms.