Agricultural investors considering getting into Ukraine may have as little as six months to exploit a slump in land values, before acquisitions by cash-recharged companies spur a market revival, the head of Landkom, the farm operator, has said.

Land, which reached $1,500 per hectare during the early-2008 boom, was now fetching about $150 per hectare amid firesales by companies burnt by last year's economic, and agricultural, slump, Vitaliy Skotsyk, the Landkom chief executive, said.

"Some companies that had large land banks, but did not have the finances to farm it, started to drop land," Mr Skotsyk told Agrimoney.com.

However, investors have only "up to six to 12 months" before prices are revived by an acquisition spree supported by $700m in cash raised through share and debt issues by Ukrainian companies this year.

Deep pockets 

The wave would centre on five-to-10 companies, a list from which "you cannot drop Landkom", Mr Skotsyk said, although he declined to confirm other likely names.

"These companies have an opportunity to increase their land bank as well as investing in new plants," he said, flagging also the support agribusinesses were receiving from improved crop prices.

The list of Ukrainian companies which have raised capital this year includes Avangard, the egg producer which listed in London this month, sunflowers and silos group Kernel, and MHP, the grains-to-sausages group.

And further companies may raise warchests through reviving plans for stockmarket flotations shelved during the 2008-09 stockmarket crash

"If they have proved they got through the crisis the right way, they definitely have earned the right to raise money on the stock exchange," Mr Skotsyk said.

'Tune and increase' 

Landkom had used the slump in land prices itself to rework its holdings which, while retaining its portfolio at some 74,000 hectares.

The group has shuffled some 36-37% of its land for other parcels, which are either viewed as more fertile or more readily accessible to Landkom's farming bases.

"This is the best time to tune and increase land banks," he said.

Much of Ukraine's farmland, which is leased rather than bought outright, is viewed as potentially highly fertile, although large swathes have lain fallow for years, since the bloc's break-up fostered a collapse in agriculture subsidies.