Univer investment group opens about 1,000 new accounts every month
Investment Group Univer opens about a thousand new securities accounts for clients every month thanks to the creation of a marketplace with government bonds and more than 30 other instruments, as well as educational and advertising efforts, said founder and president of the group Taras Kozak.
"I think that thanks to all our educational and advertising efforts, we are now the leader in the number of accounts opened: about a thousand new accounts per month," he said in an interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to Kozak, the company now has about 20,000 clients.
According to the reports of the Settlement Center for Servicing Contracts in Financial Markets, as of August 1, 211,160 unique investors were registered, and since the beginning of this year their number has increased by 13,370.
"I won't say exactly the amount of money, but it is many billions of hryvnias invested in various financial instruments," the investment banker added.
He specified that the largest partner is currently NovaPay, which has introduced an alternative to deposits through repo operations with its own bonds, the administrator of which is Univer.
At the same time, according to Kozak, in addition to NovaPay, the investment group offers its clients the largest selection of securities in Ukraine through its own application: in addition to 10 series of government bonds, there are also more than 30 instruments.
"We are creating a marketplace so that in one place a Ukrainian can buy both government bonds, and funds, and some corporate bonds, and some foreign securities that were introduced into Ukraine before the war. When our clients want to sell, we put them in the office, and our other clients buy them," explained the president of Univer.
He emphasized that the investment group allows into the office only those instruments in which it is ready to invest some part of its portfolios.
According to him, Univer offers investors to buy securities of both its own funds (Mykhailo Hrushevsky, Taras Shevchenko - invest in Ukraine; Yaroslav Mudry and Otaman - before the war invested in the S&P500 and Nasdaq indices, respectively, but now their investments are limited), as well as real estate funds and land funds.
As examples of real estate funds, he cited Andriy Zhurzhiy's Inzhur funds and two Standard One funds, which buy apartments in large income-generating buildings being built near the National Complex Expocenter of Ukraine and in Obolon. Kozak clarified that at the same time, the investment group does not deal with construction financing funds in principle.
"The third type of funds is land funds: Your Circle, Hruntovno, First Ukrainian Agrarian Fund - they buy land on the balance sheet, and then rent it out. The funds have some dividends due to the rental fee, but the client's great interest is to buy a piece of land for a small check for UAH 100,000-200,000," the investment banker described the land funds.
He recalled that Univer's own funds are open, while real estate and land funds are qualifying with requirements for a minimum contribution of UAH 122,000.
Kozak noted that the investment group does not yet plan to create its own real estate and land funds, but is focused only on managing its own funds that invest in securities. At the same time, he indicated, to add securities funds from competitors to the marketplace to expand the offer.
In his opinion, the client's benefit is the convenience of having all the reporting and all the financial instruments in one place in order to effectively manage them and transfer money from asset to asset.
Among other areas of activity of Univer, Kozak highlighted registration or assistance in creating new financial instruments: bonds, funds and a number of other instruments.
"In the case of bonds, we are probably the largest underwriter now," says the head of the company.
As an example, he cited the issue of Novus covered bonds for UAH 400 million, bonds of the fintech company Activitis for UAH 300 million.
In addition, the asset management company "Univer Management, which is part of the group, offers venture fund management for third-party businesses that are structured in this way, Kozak said.
"In moments when there is no market, and such moments happen very often in our country, unfortunately - both 2014 and 2020 and 2022 - this allows us to survive," he noted.