Primary Manufacturing Site

Energy & Utilities Building, Secondary Manufacturing Site

Secondary Manufacturing Building

Intermediate Products Storage Facility

Janna Fortmann and Philip Ammerman (centre) with the Vice President for Finance (left) and the Director of Marketing (right).

BACKGROUND

From December 1999 - April 2000, NAVIGATOR developed a business plan for a $ 10 million factory expansion to a major automotive battery manufacturer located in central Ukraine.

The investment project was commissioned directly by the client, and submitted to the EBRD for loan financing. 

TASKS & CHALLENGES

We assembled a multi-functional team of consultants to develop a comprehensive business plan. A major challenge of the project was to determine the overall investment concept of the plant: would it be a tolling operation, in which plant customers would provide raw materials and finance, or would it be a semi-vertically-integrated operation, which would eventually extend through to battery recycling, plastic box production, and wet and dry battery production? 

Our task was complicated by the secrecy surrounding corporate accounts, due to competitive considerations, the shareholding structure and the transfer pricing system designed to shift costs between different corporate members of the group.

Finally, it was necessary to negotiate several iterations of the plan in order to get full agreement between corporate management and the EBRD team responsible for the loan application process. 

RESULTS

Despite these challenges, we prevailed in developing a business plan that reflected both the commercial and investment opportunities inherent in the project, as well as safeguarding and respecting the requirements of both the EBRD and corporate management. 

The loan application was successfully completed in mid-2000.