On September 23, 2026, the Commission for Determining the Manager of Complex Assets at the Agency for the Reorganization of State and Municipal Enterprises (ARMA) concluded the competition to manage the corporate rights of the IDS Ukraine group — one of the largest bottled water producers in Ukraine, whose portfolio includes the Morshynska and Myrhorodska brands. According to the competition protocol, which is in the possession of RBC-Ukraine, and a Forbes Ukraine report, the winner of the selection was the limited liability company "Law Firm Prioritas." At the same time, as the publication notes, the management contract had not yet been signed at the time the results were announced.
A micro-enterprise versus billion-scale assets
The key contradiction in the choice is the scale of the asset versus the scale of the winner. According to open registries and financial reports, Prioritas falls into the micro-enterprise category: its authorized capital is 1,000 hryvnias, its staff numbers three employees, and its net profit for 2025 was about 8,400 hryvnias. For comparison: IDS Ukraine's consolidated revenue for 2025 was about 7.4 billion hryvnias, the group's companies employ around 3,000 people, and the value of its assets in public estimates is roughly 8 billion hryvnias. In justifying its proposal, Prioritas stated that management would be carried out without creating separate structural units and without a significant increase in staff — relying on existing employees and the use of outsourced specialists, with an emphasis on cost reduction, export expansion, and logistics optimization.
Course of the competition: rejection of Ukrkapital
The competition was held with the participation of a commission whose chair, elected in April 2026, is Ukraine's Business Ombudsman Anka Feldguzen; ARMA stated that her involvement was intended to strengthen the independence and credibility of the selection process. According to Forbes Ukraine, the commission deemed Prioritas's fee justification appropriate and voted to announce the auction results. Earlier, the agency had rejected the proposal of the first participant — the state-owned management company Ukrkapital, which had offered to manage the asset for a fee of 0.01% of net profit — after which it moved on to Prioritas's proposal with a fee of 0.9%.
Contradictory data
Several inconsistencies are noted in public statements and the competition documentation. First, ARMA emphasized that for IDS Ukraine, under the new rules, "requirements for candidates were tightened" and additional control mechanisms for the management of strategic assets were introduced; however, the winner turned out to be a micro-enterprise with three employees and an authorized capital of 1,000 hryvnias, which raises questions about the criteria by which the state determines a private company's ability to manage assets of such scale. Second, an analysis of the competition documentation notes that Prioritas's calculations did not properly account for certain mandatory tax payments, and discrepancies were found in the calculation of the manager's expected fee — even though the fee itself was deemed "appropriate" by the commission. Third, regarding insurance: the ARMA contract draft provides for the manager's obligation to insure the assets in favor of the agency for their full appraised value, whereas Prioritas's documents state that there is no corresponding insurance product on the market, and the provisioned insurance reserve amounts to only 600,000 hryvnias per year.
What's next: audit and contract signing
Immediately after the results were announced, the new manager announced the conduct of a full audit of the group's assets. As Ukrainian media report, citing Prioritas representative Herman, the audit is planned to begin immediately — it will be the first step in working with the asset and will help form an accurate picture of the group companies' financial condition before management decisions on exports and logistics are made. The actual signing of the management contract had not yet taken place at the time the protocol was announced, meaning the process has moved to the stage of agreeing on terms.
Context: dispute with British shareholders
The decision on IDS Ukraine is being made against the backdrop of an ongoing conflict with the former owners: earlier, British shareholders of Morshynska stated their intention to appeal to international courts, citing ARMA's attempts to deprive them of their assets. Thus, the choice of manager raises not only the question of the specific winner but also the criteria by which the state determines a private company's ability to manage assets of such scale; these questions, according to observers, must receive public answers, especially given that this is one of the largest assets transferred to state management.
