Shipping company on sale to public

  • 2002-02-21
  • J. Michael Lyons
RIGA - The storied journey of the Latvian Shipping Company toward privatization gained speed Feb. 18 as 32 percent of the state-owned company was offered for privatization vouchers.

Some 64 million shares will be sold for privatization vouchers, the largest public offering in Latvia's history.

The minimum price per share was set at 1 lat ($1.56) and the offer runs through March 22.

Following three failed attempts to sell the company, the Cabinet of Ministers last month passed regulations that would turn one of the region's key shippers from a state-owned headache into a joint-stock private company.

Previous sell-off attempts failed to attract a strategic investor amid allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the privatization process.

"The bottom line is that the state is not a rational owner of any piece of property, and it's no more clear than with the shipping company," said Roberts Idelsons, managing director of Suprema Securities in Riga. "In this case it hurt the company."

Idelsons said the current sell-off was the next best option to selling to a single strategic investor.

Under the regulations another 51 percent of the company will be offered on the Riga Stock Exchange next month, 6 percent will be sold to LASCO employees and pensioners for privatization vouchers, 10 percent will be designated to the State Pension Special Budget and 1 percent will be held in a special "privatization reserve."

The state hopes that share sales on the Riga Stock Exchange will attract institutional investors - like investment banks. If not, share prices will likely be too expensive to attract local investors and the state will still retain a majority share, which would mark the fifth failure to fully privatize the company.

Prior to the share issue, a team of legal and financial experts will examine the health of the company, which is sorely in need of investment capital to upgrade its aging, 52-ship fleet.

The state's board of trustees, which oversees the company's financial operations, expects $380 million in investments for upgrades by 2006, a tall order for a company that the board expects to post an annual turnover of $106.3 million next year.

The company's advantage, said Idelsons, is that is not heavily in debt and has room to borrow.

"Obviously the company has some problems, but they're not as huge as they're made out to be in the local press," he said.

Officials hope the privatization will be completed this summer.