company briefs

FOREIGN COMPANY TO TAKE OVER HUNGARY'S KHELL-FOOD

One of Hungary's biggest sandwich makers, Khell-Food is to be acquired by Orkla Foods of Norway. Khell-Food was founded in 1992 and sells sandwiches under this brand throughout Hungary. The share purchase agreement is expected to become effective in the first quarter of 2023, subject to the approval of the Hungarian authorities.

There will be no change at the helm of KhellFood, which will continue to be led by Zoltán Kelényi, the current owner-CEO. The company has done well in recent years, with revenue growth of 11% between 2017 and 2021. Orkla is expanding at a rapid pace: it recently acquired 74% of the shares in the Polish pizza chain Da Grasso.

OTP BANK TO BUY UZBEKH FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

Hungary’s OTP Bank signed a purchase and sale contract on the privatization of Ipoteka Bank in Uzbekistan in the middle of December.

According to the contract, OTP Bank will purchase 100% of the shares held by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Uzbekistan (nearly 97% shareholding) in two steps: 75% of the shares now and the remaining 25% three years after the financial closure of the first leg of the transaction. At the same time, OTP Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have agreed to cooperate on Ipoteka Bank in the future. IFC has been providing financing and transformation support to Ipoteka Bank for several years and IFC confirmed it is committed to continuing its support and cooperating with OTP Bank, the new majority shareholder.

The transaction is the first step in the privatization process of the local, predominantly state-owned banking sector. Ipoteka Bank is the 5th largest bank in Uzbekistan with a total asset-based market share of 8.5% and it is the market leader in mortgage lending with around 30% market share. The financial closure of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and expected in the first half of 2023.

Hydro Develops Capacity Of Its Sz Kesfeh Rv R Plant

DANOVA PROJECT COMPLETED AT BUDAPEST'S MAIN AIRPORT

With the completion of the DANOVA project, Ferenc Liszt International Airport has become the first European airport to provide an independent indoor navigation application for blind and visually impaired passengers. Thanks to the development, implemented with EU funding, unaccompanied orientation and navigation at Budapest's main airport has become easier for users than ever before.

According to a statement by the management company Budapest Airport, it has also installed tactile walking surface indicators along 1,100 meters of passenger areas, at a cost of EUR 31,000 from its own budget.

There are more than 30 million blind and partially sighted people in Europe alone, yet more than 96% of European transport systems are still not fully accessible for visually impaired people, especially in the Danube region. Many blind and partially sighted passengers find it very difficult, and in some cases even impossible to travel by air, rail or urban public transport. ‘DANOVAInnovative transport services for blind and partially sighted passengers in the Danube Region,’ funded by the European Union’s Interreg Danube research and development framework program, aims to make air, water and land public transport fully and independently accessible to blind and partially sighted passengers.

Budapest Airport has joined the transnational initiative and the international consortium of 14 partners, together with the Center for Budapest Transport (BKK). Budapest Airport and BKK also involved the Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted and the Central Hungarian Regional Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired in the planning of the project, to ensure that the development should be fully adapted to the needs of the blind and partially sighted.

Hydro Extrusion Hungary Ltd. is continuing its automotive investments in Hungary and is increasing the extrusion capacity of its Székesfehérvár plant, SW of Budapest, with a EUR 35.7 million (HUF 14.6 billion) development. The company said the development will ensure its future growth potential and create 40 new jobs. In addition to the construction of the aluminum recycling plant announced a year ago, this will be the seventh aluminum extrusion line at the Székesfehérvár site, and is expected to start operations in 2025. The new press will be located in an existing building and will use aluminum billets from the new recycling plant. With this investment, Hydro's Székesfehérvár plant will reinforce its special role as a supplier to the premium brand market, especially in the electric car segment. The automotive components produced in Székesfehérvár include energy absorption systems such as bumpers and crumple zones, as well as a number of structural components for the car body and battery frames. The Norwegian aluminum company's plant in Székesfehérvár, which employs around 1,600 people, is the largest extrusion plant of its kind in Europe, and is also a leading player in Hydro Extrusions' automotive strategy. According to publicly available company data, Hydro Extrusion Hungary Ltd. achieved a profit of HUF 1 billion on sales of HUF 112 billion in the 2020 financial year, while last year it closed with a profit after tax of HUF 10.5 billion on sales of HUF 147 billion.

Diplomacy-n-Trade.ai 1 2017. 02. 27. 11:22:30

BY TAMÁS MAGYARICS

’Eternal peace’ seems to be as far from its realization as at the time when the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in Königsberg was writing about it in the latter half of the 18th century. In fact, the year 2022 was dominated by the Russo-Ukrainian war initiated by Russian aggression, and a number of dire predictions that the conflict might ultimately degenerate into either a nuclear war or a war between the U.S. and Russia – or both.

Naked violence of international law

Vladimir Putin seems to have fatally miscalculated both the strength and the resolve of the Ukrainians and the determination of the West of not letting such a naked violence of international law and the sovereignty of a nation go unpunished. The two sides seem to be determined to go to great lengths, and the outlines of a potential armistice, let alone peace were absolutely obscure at the end of 2022. As in each war, this one is not only about the parties, which are actually fighting each other, there are a number of other outside actors who are trying to take advantage of the situation. Foremost among them is Washington, which seems to be bent on weakening one of its strategic peer competitors, Russia; however, it is an unresolved question whether this endeavor might not push Moscow too close to Beijing.

Despite the fact that Russia has been able to weather the various sanctions imposed on her by a number of countries so far, foremost among them the U.S., the members of the EU, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand (that is, the ’West’ in a broader sense), she is bound to be one of the losers of this conflict in the final analysis.