Since 2016, Olena Lebedieva has started a consolidation process of owned diversified assets under the brand AURUM GROUP.

The founder of AURUM GROUP told about the operation of group enterprises, issues relevant to manufacturers and the need to change the export-raw model of the national economic development in an exclusive interview for Business.

You are called a businesswoman with experience but there is little known about you. Is publicity a burden for you?

– I am not a public figure at all; there is neither time nor need for this. Multibusiness requires total commitment and takes almost all my time. My work schedule is difficult to call fixed, regular working hours usually start at 5 am, while I am getting ready to leave the house to go to the office or meeting, I start to answer emails and plan main questions for discussion.

How did you go into business? What projects became significant for you?

– I started working early. Studying at the university, I did an internship with different companies, trying to gain maximum experience, and ultimately to understand in which sphere I would like to fulfil my potential in. After graduating from the university, I had clear goals and within a short time took over a management position. It is difficult to say which of the projects became significant for me, as each of them was in its own way significant and interesting at the same time, and, in general, they all gave me a lot. The major ones should probably be distinguished; one of such was “ZMK-leasing”. This company has become in just two years the largest rail freight operator from scratch: private rolling stock numbered about 2 thousand units. As in any business-process, the important factor is, probably, a chance – it turned out that we were in the right place and at the right time. At that time within the CIS fleet of cars, at least its main part was quite outdated. There was an acute shortage in the market, cars were sold like hotcakes. After two years of company’s active growth and development, it may be said to have been sold at its peak with a capitalization of about 250%.

Are you dealing with freight rail transport now?

– Among other things. In 2016, I decided to unite all operating enterprises under one brand, within one holding, thus founding AURUM GROUP. Today the company manages the enterprises that deal with freight rail, car building, industrial pumping and chemical industry, we start to develop agribusiness. The largest enterprises of the group are transport companies “Aurum Trans”, “Trans Energy”, manufacturing companies “Verhnedniprovsk Machine Building Plant”, “Svesky Pumping Plant”, “Lizinvest”, repair shed “Agregatbud”.

Now the industry is facing hard times, how do you finish 2017?

– Let’s just say on a cautious positive line. We plan to increase the volume of cargo transported by our rail cars during 2017 to 1 million tons that will bring in revenue of about 90 million UAH.

We managed to increase the car fleet by 32% to 467 units during the year, which gives us hope to increase revenue up to 130 million UAH next year and the volume of transportation to 1,2 million tons.

Among topical issues of rail freight that significantly thwart the progress of this segment, as earlier, is a shortage of and unsatisfactory technical condition of the traction rolling stock of “Ukrzaliznytsia” (UZ). According to UZ data, currently, electric locomotive wear is 93,0%, diesel-powered locomotive – 98%, which directly influences an increase of such factor as “car turnover”. If earlier each car was loaded once in 6-7 days, now this time exceeds 9 days, therefore in order to load the same volume of raw materials a larger number of cars is required. Thus, an increase of “car turnover” does not allow us and other market operators to use private gondola cars efficiently and complicates seriously a planning process.

Overall, the political and social-economic situation in the country does not allow to build long-term plans and predict the duration and development of certain trends. Almost all of our business areas are susceptible to minor changes in the politics and economy. After a serious crisis of 2014, we are still, like the rest of the country, recovering.

Nowadays, unfortunately, there are no grounds to state that in the short-term the situation in the country is going to change for the better. Reforms are going forward, though too slowly. Among the most burning issues that negatively affect the development of business, as earlier, are insecurity of investments, ineffective judicial system, lack of state support for the development of the industry.

The business now needs state support more than ever. Ukraine should get rid of an export-raw model of the national economic development. If today the state does not start structural changes in industrial policy and ignores transition from a raw economy to an informational one, Ukraine will remain a third world country.

Is business itself ready for investment in modernization?

– Again we return to the issue of investor protection. Business, like air, needs an additional cheap financial resource, through which it will possible to do stage-by-stage re-equipment of production, master new technologies etc. However, where to get the money? Foreign investors, who are well aware of all the risks and our market specifics, do not want to invest money here, realistically assessing their risks. To my mind, investor protection today is a key issue and without its solution, there is no sense talking about creating high-tech products.

And what projects on production modernization are you planning? Your plans for 2018?

– If to talk about plans for the next year, in 2018 our main priorities are the development of railway business areas – production, repair, maintenance of rolling stock. We also put many efforts to modernize our foundry production, this year we ordered new equipment from the UK, which we plan to install in the spring of 2018. Also, next year we plan to build, equip and put into operation a new wheel rolling shop for doing a repair of a set of wheels of freight cars, which will allow us to do a full cycle repair of gondola cars and reduce its duration from 5-7 to 1-2 days. For front-line Rubizhne, where production is located, this is a very important and long-awaited event – new workplaces will appear.

Additionally, we are actively studying prospective directions for the development – these are niche agribusiness and venture IT-projects, green energy projects. At the level of the board of directors, the issue of investing in the construction of a solar power station (SPS) was repeatedly discussed, it is a topical issue for Ukraine today, but perhaps this popularity is a bit repulsive nowadays. We see some risks in the pace of construction of SPS in Ukraine.

By the way, we have already installed modern equipment at several enterprises, which allows us to withdraw from natural gas and significantly reduce our operating costs.

Also, we plan to start production of gondola cars next year, for today this is the most requested cars, with which 70% of cargo is transported by railway.

Business