VILNIUS - Talks last week between VP Market and the Nordic group Baltic Beverages Holding, owner of Svyturys-Untenos Alus, failed to end a row between the country's largest retail chain and leading beer producer. But VP Market's chief executive said he still hoped to reach a compromise that would put Svyturys-Utenos Alus' products back on the shelves of VP Market stores.
"We are doing our best to resume the sale [of Svyturys-Utenos Alus products]. I believe that we can find a solution," he said.
After the talks, VP Market CEO Ignas Staskevicius met with BBH President Cristian Ramm-Schmidt, who traveled to Vilnius in an effort to resolve the conflict.
But Staskevicius said that no definite decisions had been made during the meeting.
"We exchanged opinions on what has happened and found common ground on some issues. I do not rule out that we may have to meet and talk again," he said.
Still, while he waits for concrete proposals from BBH, which owns a majority stake in Svyturys-Utenos Alus, Staskevicius said he blamed the head of the brewery for triggering the conflict.
The row broke out after VP Market cancelled its orders for Svyturys-Utenos Alus products on June 8. Staskevicius accused Tomas Kucinskas, CEO of the beer producer and vice president of BBH, of attempting to force cartel-like conditions on retailers.
Svyturys-Utenos Alus denied the accusations, arguing that VP Market was simply trying to pressure the brewery into reducing prices.
The retail group currently runs a chain of 269 stores in the three Baltic countries, of which 186 stores are in Lithuania, 81 in Latvia and two in Estonia. According to the group's estimates, it held a 34.5 percent share of Lithuania's retail food product market last year.
In addition, VP Market reported total sales of 3.5 billion litas (1 billion euros) in 2003 - a 17.3 percent rise over 2002 - and is on the way to posting 10 percent growth in sales, to around 4 billion litas, this year.
According to Zilvinas Marcinkevicius, a shareholder of VP Market, the reported consolidated figure combined the pretax earnings of all the VP Market group's Baltic companies - with the exception of NDX Energija, which controls Lithuania's power distributor Vakaru Skirstomieji Tinklai.
He added that in 2003, the group paid a total of 23.1 million litas in taxes. Based on this data, the Baltic News Service calculated that the group's net earnings reached 121.7 million litas last year.
Marcinkevicius, however, would not reveal how much profit the group made in 2002, but said it was lower than that of 2003.
Svyturys-Utenos Alus, which is 75.85 percent owned by BBH, posted a net profit of 68.7 million litas for 2003, down by 9.9 percent from the previous year. Its annual revenues grew by 7.5 percent to 301 million litas.
