REbuilding Ukraine Agency – a Year in the Life!

Ability to see around the corners is not always a good thing. Although it gets one to places early, armed with advanced information and knowledge, it is a lonely place, as others at the time do not wish to hear, or process this information.

Today, it seems like everyone is talking about Rebuilding Ukraine, various government agencies, non-profits and private sector folks. The war still rages on, yet the “Prepare now for Rebuilding” theme is everywhere. Webinars, trade shows, talking heads, academic papers are written, new agencies and rebuilding initiatives are being established. Today’s message from the pundits is “let’s prepare, let’s start now, as it takes a long time to develop projects; it is complicated, and it is important”. For all of us at the Rebuilding Ukraine Agency, these constant posts, seminars and activities almost always put a smile on our faces, as March 24th marks a full year since the Rebuilding Ukraine Agency was officially founded with the sole mission of providing international solutions to help Ukraine recover and rebuild itself from the damages of the horrific russian aggression. A year ago, almost nobody was talking about Rebuilding Ukraine, yet a small, private sector, member-owned, international organization was created specifically to help address strategic needs of a war-ravaged country, both during and post conflict. It was created then, because all of us who founded the Agency knew that it takes a very long time, it is complicated and in order to succeed the right people would need to be selected and would have to do tremendous work. The organization, which itself has had to go from nascency to adulthood, while developing effective solutions among the chaos, political discord, bureaucracy and ongoing war, all while dealing with missile attacks on peaceful cities and Ukraine’s rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

If one were to make a military analogy about the evolution of the Agency over the first 12 months of existence, it went from a shotgun to a high-powered sniper rifle. Its initial member and prospective member roster consisted of a buckshot of small and mid -sized firms interested in knowing more about the subject of rebuilding and charged with emotion of the early war days, when Ukraine was on CNN 24/7. Membership in 2022 was free, emotional response overwhelming and people (most of whom have never been to or worked in Ukraine) wanted to belong to the cause. As the year went on, and time came to start paying membership dues, the Agency’s membership roster shrank by about 30 percent and became laser focused. Effective management and governance were established, several projects in the areas of construction materials production, real estate and medical rehabilitation with combined value of over $100 million went into active development. Another $120+million in project financing and political risk insurance proposals are currently out for review and acceptance by the prospective investors. Active work is taking place in assisting our members to develop effective demining and unexploded ordnance removal operations for agricultural and urban environments, infrastructure and residential construction projects, new municipal heating solutions, effective PTSD rehabilitation centers and construction industry training programs. The membership bulked up, as large international companies started to join the Agency with more candidates emerging every week.

The Agency has created several strategic relationships, among which, the most notable were cooperation with the Rebuilding Ukraine Association (501C3 non-profit on industry education initiatives, signed MOUs with the Confederation of Ukrainian Builders and with the Mayors’ Club. The Agency provided humanitarian assistance to a birthing hospital in Nizhin (although much more needs to be done there and our efforts fell short of targets). We conducted free financing master classes to over 20 Ukrainian municipalities and announced another series of training sessions to help them improve their economic development activities and increase their attractiveness to international investors. Earlier this month, the Agency announced that its Board Member Dr. Anzola, who is renowned for training multiple Export Credit Agencies (ECAs) around the world, will offer a pro bono training course to Ukraine’s official Export Credit Agency. One of our members – a director of a large, global architectural firm has with the Agency’s support, led her firm to set up a pro bono effort to help modernize the city of Irpin in accordance with the latest energy efficiency and smart city standards. The Agency’s participation at the REbuild Ukraine event in Warsaw in February was a smashing success. The Warsaw event provided updated clarity of the current situation and allowed the Agency to plot new directions towards expansion of its membership roster, economic development assistance for Ukrainian cities and municipalities and development of new funding sources. Our community following the Agency on social media organically grew to over 1,500 followers.

I sincerely want to thank everyone who over the last year has contributed to the Agency’s success and development. Special thanks go to all the Board Members, our Corporate Officers, supporting professionals and Advisors. Thanks to the representatives of the US and Ukrainian Governments, as well as IFIs for all your help and support. Special thanks to our friends at the US-Ukraine Business Council and to all of you who followed our progress, read our materials and offered to help Ukraine in this difficult time. Thank You!

So where do we go from here? To find out you will need to read our upcoming posts and continue to follow us, as we remain steadfast in our commitment to help Ukraine Win this war and Rebuild! Slava Ukraini!

Broad Street Capital Group to Advise on $75 million financing for the Tier III Data Center Project

(London, UK – June 24, 2016) On this historic day of the “Brexit” referendum, Broad  Street Capital Group announced that it has been appointed as the exclusive financial adviser for for financing of a state-of-the-art data center in the Baltic States.  The proposed $100 million project, called AmberCore DC, will launch in 2017 and will be financed through a combination of owner and investor equity, coupled with senior debt to be provided by the UK Export Finance (UKEF). 

CBRE of London and PACT Consulting Inc., based in Bethesda, Md., have been selected as the data center’s marketing consultants and will be responsible for introducing anchor clients to the project.

“We are delighted to serve as the financiers for this  project,” stated Alexander M. Gordin, Managing Director of Broad Street Capital Group. “With the worldwide explosion of cloud computing services, significant demand exists for quality data hosting facilities in emerging markets. Not only does the proposed project enjoy a strategic location and terrific connectivity, but it is also being developed by an experienced, highly reputable teleport operator and satellite services provider with a diverse international clientele. Despite strong geopolitical winds, which have slowed the project down over the last 24 months, the owners persevered and have remained completely committed to the project. “, said Gordin

“We aim to attract large European  and US-based corporate customers from the IT, oil & gas and financial sectors. who are interested in a professional Tier III certified data center facility strategically located in close proximity to some of the fasted growing emerging markets,” said Vitaliy Malashevskiy, Director of Ambercore DC and a co-owner of Satgate UAB, the project’s sponsor.

The AmberCore DC project will be the second high-tech facility in the Baltic States for the SatGate Group. It will be scalable up to 30MW of power and 5,000 racks, due to the modular design approach, which will utilize the latest cooling technologies to maximize the efficiency and minimize power consumption.

“This project will showcase the latest technological advances, and will open up a superb opportunity for UK and U.S. cooperation with the Baltic region countries,” Gordin added.

About Ambercore DC – a project company formed to develop a TIER III data center strategically located in the Baltics. To date, the project’s sponsors have invested over $6 million in property acquisition, design, engineering, development, certification and marketing of the project. The design has been certified TIER III by the Uptime institute. It is the only facility in Europe with proprietary access to an adjacent uplink/downlink teleport facility, which has been developed and is being operated by its parent company – Satgate UAB

About Satgate UAB  – SatGate UAB is a leading satellite services provider, based in Lithuania. Operating a unique satellite teleport facility located near of Vilnius, SatGate provides a full range of satellite communication services in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia to ISPs, telecoms, the oil and gas industry, and other corporate and private customers. SatGate integrates and manages turn-key communication solutions of any complexity. For more information, please visit http://www.satgate.net

About Broad Street Capital Group-Based in the World Trade Center’s Freedom Tower in New York City’s financial district, Broad Street Capital Group is an international private merchant bank, which since 1988 has served several foreign governments, multiple state-owned companies, as well as SMEs in emerging markets. The Firm focuses on arranging project financing in the $50-500 million range, providing political risk mitigation, export management services and cross-border market development advisory. Although the Firm has clients ranging from Bangladesh to Oklahoma, its primarily geographic focus is on the countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia.

The  firm works closely with all trade and development agencies of the U.S. Government and Export Credit Agencies of several European and North American countries.  Since its inception, Broad Street Capital Group has been involved in multiple high-profile cross-border transactions in IT/telecom, aerospace, healthcare,  energy generation, food security, nuclear safety, hospitality and franchising sectors. The firm’s current advisory portfolio exceeds $675 million.  For more information, please visit www.broadstreetcap.com, or contact Rustem Tursynov at info@broadstreetcap.com