How Ukrainian agricultural business can receive foreign investment: important conditions studied by Yulia Stusenko

Foreign companies usually make investments in the agricultural sector of Ukraine by acquiring the corporate rights of Ukrainian legal entities for which land banks and property assets are issued: buildings, equipment, stocks of seeds and finished products, etc.

Direct acquisition of assets (without obtaining corporate rights) is unprofitable both from the point of view of taxation and from the point of view of the need to renew the rights to land plots. Because it is a long, costly and risky procedure. If only because landowners may refuse to enter into lease agreements with the new tenant.

Therefore, one of the most convenient investment tools is a shareholder agreement or corporate agreement. These agreements allow settling investors' agreements on participation in business management, formation of governing bodies, procedure for alienating corporate rights and exit from business, and other disputable situations.

But, before acquiring corporate rights and assets, investors usually conduct a legal audit of a business - Legal Due Diligence. With it, you can confirm or deny the seller’s information about the assets and economic indicators of the object of purchase, properly register the rights to land and assets, check significant agreements of the company, its accounts payable and receivables, including tax debt, and evaluate other legal risks.

That is why, even if we are talking about a small or medium agrarian business, the seller should bring the corporate structure in order so that this structure is clear and understandable to the investor. This will ensure the transparency of the business, which makes it attractive in terms of management and tax planning.

Read more about this in the article “Investments in agribusiness” of the associated partner of Skliarenko, Sydorenko and Partners, Yulia Stusenko, for the publication "Lawyer & Law".