Project reference · Logistics & transport
A subsidiary in Kyiv, ready for its manager’s first day.
A European freight forwarder had served Ukraine for some time through one local representative. In spring 2012 it set out to open its own Ukrainian company, and then its country manager resigned. The company had no registration, no replacement and no office of its own. Within fourteen weeks it had a registered company, a new country manager and a furnished room, all ready on the same Monday.
Registered in five weeks
Company
8 candidates, 3 finalists, 1 hire
Recruitment
14 weeks to a first working day
Speed
Leave the office at a day’s notice
Flexibility
Three streams, one date
Company, people and office had to meet on one Monday
Registration, recruitment and the office normally run one after another. Here they had to run side by side, because none of them could finish without the other two.
The brief
What the client actually needed
The parent had already done much of the paperwork for a limited company with 100% foreign ownership. Its representative in Kyiv worked from a desk in our business support office and had been driving the registration. When that person resigned in March, the project lost the only person who knew where it stood.
The owners asked us to pick it up. That meant four things at once: finish the company registration with the client’s own lawyer, find and assess a new country manager, give the new company a legal address and a place to work, and bridge the months in between by employing staff through us.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
A document that does not exist
Ukrainian registrars wanted an apostilled statement of who owns the foreign founder. The parent’s home registry issues no such document. The way through was a declaration signed by the parent’s director, notarised and apostilled, agreed in advance with the registration lawyer.
VAT status decides whether you can trade
Ukrainian customers pay in hryvnia and want their VAT back, so a forwarder without a VAT certificate has almost nothing to sell. The certificate needs a registered company, paid-in capital and an application that can only be filed in a short window each month.
The address has to be real
Tax officers check that a new company actually sits at its registered address. The address therefore had to stay valid, staffed and answered for the whole VAT process, even while our own office was moving across town.
Hiring for a company that is still being born
The new manager needed a legal employer, a contract and a desk on day one. Until then, staff had to be employed through us, and the offer had to wait until the company could sign it.
Owners who decide from abroad
The shortlist, the interview day, the behavioural profiles and the offer were all arranged around one short visit by the owners, with the rest settled by phone and email.
Books from the first invoice
A new company needs an accountant, accounting software, a bank and electronic tax reporting before it can bill anyone. We costed about thirty accounting processes to compare an in-house accountant with outsourcing.
What we did
Base, registration, search, office
- Early 2012 · Base. A furnished room, shared meeting space and a legal address in our business support office, and employment of the client’s representative through us.
- Mar–Apr · Registration. We took over the open file, set out the order of steps with the client’s lawyer, and costed the options for running accounts in-house or outsourced. The company was entered in the state register five weeks later.
- Apr–Jun · Search. We advertised, screened and presented seven CVs, then organised a one-morning interview day around the owners’ flight. Online behavioural profiles for the finalists followed, then the offer and handover to the client’s lawyer for the labour contract.
- Jun–Aug · Office. A dedicated room in our new business centre, with phone and fax lines of its own, on terms the client could leave at a day’s notice. At the end of the summer the subsidiary moved into its own office.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client, its owners and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Opening a company in Ukraine?
Registration, a legal address, your first hire and a desk for them can run in parallel. Thirty minutes is usually enough to see what that looks like for you.
