Jury out on Unibanka

  • 2005-04-27
  • From wire reports
RIGA - An administrative district court last week heard a claim by a minority holder in SEB Unibanka, against the country's financial watchdog, for approving the majority owner's buy-out offer.

Firebird Republics Fund, an offshore investment company, had filed the claim on the basis that Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken's buy-out price 's 2.24 lats (3.18 euros) per share 's did not reflect the SEB Unibanka's fair value and therefore the financial authorities should not have registered the transaction.

The court put off the hearing in January, claiming the case might affect SEB's interests and that the Scandinavian banking group should be invited to join the proceedings as a third party.

SEB's plans to become the sole owner of SEB Unibanka (previously Latvijas Unibanka) has been put on hold since June 2004 due to the claim against the Finance and Capital Markets Commission, which approved the buy-out offer.

Firebird Republics also argued that SEB had no right to announce a final buy-out offer without first making a mandatory buy-out offer.

Firebird owns 176,816 shares in SEB Unibanka.

Unibanka shares used to be quoted on the official list of the Riga Stock Exchange, but the listing was stopped in spring 2001 after SEB had increased its stake in the Latvian bank to more than 98 percent as a result of a buy-out offer.

SEB Unibanka, part of the Scandinavian SEB group, is the third largest bank in Latvia in terms of assets. SEB also owns Uhispank in Estonia and Vilniaus Bankas in Lithuania, the largest in the country in terms of assets.