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- Selling Toxic Assets in Ukraine. Overview of the Current Situation and Suggestions for Improvement of the Auction Design
Selling Toxic Assets in Ukraine. Overview of the Current Situation and Suggestions for Improvement of the Auction Design
June 22, 2017
Tymofiy Mylovanov, PhD, University of Pittsburgh and Kyiv School of Economics, Natalia Shapoval, MA, Kyiv School of Economics, Andrii Zapechelnyuk, University of St. Andrew, David Huffman, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, Rakesh Vohra, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, та Oleksii Soboliev, CFA, Prozorro.Sale offered their recommendations on how to improve efficiency and increase revenue of ProZorro.sale.
As of June 19, 2017, ProZorro.sale, an electronic platform to sell public and communal assets, has sold assets and loans for UAH 1.2 bln since October, 31 2016. It has been deployed mainly by the Deposit Guarantee Fund to facilitate the liquidation of insolvent banks. The platform will soon extend its portfolio to cover all the disposed assets in the public sector. A major problem is that only a tiny share of all assets offered through the auctions on the platform are sold. The unsold assets languish without a (private) owner. The empirical evidence suggests that the primary reason for a small volume of trade is high starting prices in the auctions and the lack of competition. In this memorandum, we discuss ways to improve the auction rules to increase efficiency and revenue of the platform. We suggest that a modified Dutch with a final sealed bid stage can increase efficiency and the revenue of the Fund.