Selling Toxic Assets in Ukraine. Overview of the Current Situation and Suggestions for Improvement of the Auction Design
June 22, 2017
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.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, PhD, University of Pittsburgh and Kyiv School of Economics, Nataliia 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.
Authors
Tymofiy Mylovanov
KSE President, Associate Professor of the University of Pittsburgh, former Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine
Nataliia Shapoval
Chairman of KSE Institute, Vice President for Policy Research, Member of Advisory Board of Center of Excellence in Procurement, Member of Editorial Board of VoxUkraine, Trade +, Center of Excellence in Procurement
Andy Zapechelnyuk
Professor of Economics at the University of St. Andrews