Investors are already showing interest in the Ukrainian steel industry – a senior manager at Metinvest

Once the war is over, Metinvest is open to partnerships to develop its business over the next 5–10 years. Ildar Saleev, the group’s Director of Strategy and Business Development, spoke about this during the ‘UP 100. Business: 20 Years of Ekonomichna Pravda’ event.

According to him, investors are already showing interest in the steel industry, as the sector will form the basis for the country’s post-war reconstruction.

The company’s planning horizon, Saleev noted, covers several timeframes – both long-term and short-term. The group is simultaneously considering several timeframes – up to 2040, over the next decade, and for the next three months.

“We are in talks with strategic partners – these include investment funds and key industry players. It is too early to discuss specific agreements at this stage – everyone is waiting to see how the situation in Ukraine will develop. But there is interest, and it is considerable. Partnership is the path to business development both in Ukraine and beyond its borders,” he noted.

The company’s Director of Strategy and Business Development recalled that over the past 20 years, Metinvest has transformed from a local producer into an international group with operations in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and the UK.

The company spent part of that journey – 12 years, to be precise – operating under wartime conditions. However, even despite these circumstances and the loss of some of its facilities in the Donetsk region, the group remains one of Ukraine’s largest investors: since 2022, its investment volume has amounted to nearly 40 billion hryvnias.

Metinvest is also one of the country’s largest exporters – last year, export revenue exceeded 150 billion hryvnias. At the same time, the company is a major donor to the Armed Forces of Ukraine: since 2022, 7.3 billion hryvnias have been channelled to the army through Rinat Akhmetov’s ‘Steel Front’ initiative.

“In Ukraine, the company has truly become one of the pillars of industry and the economy as a whole,” noted Saleev.

The company believes that a developed industrial sector, and the steel industry in particular, will strengthen the country’s economy as it moves towards European integration.

According to Ildar Saleev, in 20 years’ time, Metinvest will be a metallurgical company operating in Ukraine whilst also being a fully-fledged representative of the European steel industry. It will be a producer of ‘green’ steel that has modernised its plants, switched to electric arc furnaces and is integrated into global industrial supply chains.

It is worth recalling that speed is the key to the industry’s resilience during wartime, whilst people remain the critical resource. This was stated by Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of the Metinvest Group, at the GLOBSEC Forum in Prague.