As orders for its backup electricity generators surged in Ukraine, Turkish company Aksa Power Generation finally dispatched a dedicated manager to Kyiv. Salih Komurcu’s job, though, wasn’t just to oversee the current business in the war-hit country. It was also about what happens when the bombs eventually stop.
The situation on the front line offers no sense of when or how Russia’s war against its neighbor might end. Ukrainian setbacks have darkened the mood in Kyiv of late. But a growing phalanx of companies is gradually increasing its presence on the ground with the prospect of the biggest investment opportunity since at least World War II when it does.
Governments, executives and investors are positioning themselves in anticipation of a reconstruction that the European Investment Bank estimates could amount to more than $1 trillion of public and private capital. Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than five times as big as the U.S.-funded Marshall Plan that powered the industrial renaissance in Europe following Germany’s defeat.