Fund makes offer for soap producer

VILNIUS (BNS) - The Baltic Investment Fund Management Ltd., which holds a majority stake in Naujoji Ringuva, the largest Lithuanian detergent and soap producer, has offered to buy the remaining ordinary shares in the company at 8.56 litas ($ 2.14) per share. Face value of a Naujoji Ringuva share is 3 litas.

The mandatory non-competitive official tender offer has been registered with the Lithuanian Securities Commission.

The Kaunas-based factory turned into a 100 percent private company when the State Assets Fund auctioned the remaining state-owned stake of 2.07 percent for 160,000 litas in April of this year.

Baltic Investment Fund currently owns 969,600 shares in Naujoji Ringuva, which accounts for 74.42 percent of the company's capital. The fund acquired the controlling block of shares in late 1997.

The soap producer operated at a profit last year, posting a full-year net profit of 880,000 litas on turnover of 9.8 million litas.

The Russian crisis, however, trimmed Naujoji Ringuva's income this year, forcing the company to lower production prices and leaving it without any profit in the first half of this year.

Naujoji Ringuva's managers anticipate a profit in the second half of the year as the company's exports to Russia and sales have been recovering.

The soap factory sells half of its production on the local market, with the other half exported to Afghanistan, Latvia, Estonia and Russia's Kaliningrad region.