VILNIUS - Lithuania's two leading IT companies, Alna and Sonex Group, have announced plans to swap their business units. Alna is taking over the business solution and programming business, while Sonex group will assimilate the IT infrastructure solution business.
Under the terms of the exchange, Alna is to buy 100 percent of shares in each of Sonex's two subsidiaries - Sonex Systems and Softex Latvia - while the Sonex Group is to take over 100 percent of Alnos Infrastrukturos Sprendimai (Alna Infrastructure Solutions), a company that Alna recently set up.
Alna and the Sonex Group unveiled the plan to swap their subsidiaries during a news conference on April 29. However, they would not disclose the financial details of the deal.
The Sonex Group, which has operations in all three Baltic countries and Belarus, reported a pretax profit of 7 million litas (2 million euros) for 2003, up by 34.6 percent from 2002. The group's consolidated revenues grew by 32.4 percent to 192 million litas last year.
Arunas Bartusevicius, chairman of the Sonex Group's management board, holds 64 percent of the Sonex Group's stock. The European Bank for Reconstruction of Development controls a 36 percent stake through the fund manager Scandinavian Baltic Development.
Alna posted a pretax profit of 2.9 million litas for 2003, down from the 2002 pretax profit of 15.6 million litas. The group's consolidated revenues reached 110 million litas, down by 5.8 percent from 2002.
Valentinas Milaknis, a former Lithuanian economy minister, owned 71 percent of Alna's stock as of late October 2003. The EBRD holds an approximate 14 percent stake in the company.
