Atria wants all of Valga meat

  • 2005-01-06
  • Baltic News Service
TALLINN - The Atria Group, Finland's largest meatpacker, signed a contract on acquiring the entire share capital of Estonia's AS Valga Lihatoostus (Valga Meatpacker) on Dec. 30.

Final confirmation of the transaction will be made after Finland's competition authority approves the corporate arrangement, which should take place in January, Atria said. The company is aiming to win a market share of 25 percent in the Baltics.

In October Atria signed a protocol of intent for the purchase of the holding of the core investor of Valga Meatpacker, which owned 75.83 percent of the shares. At the time Atria stressed that it had wanted to sign similar protocols with small shareholders.

Valga Meatpacker controls 15 percent of the market in Estonia. The company also has a share on the Latvian market, where it has contractual agreements with the Rimi and Citymarket chains, and also operate in Sweden.

Atria said that cooperation between Atria, Valga Meatpacker and Atria's Lithuanian subsidiary, Vilniaus Mesa, would strengthen its market position and competitiveness on the background of continued consolidation of retail trade on the entire Baltic market.

Valga Meatpacker had sales of 327 million kroons (20.9 million euros) and posted a profit of more than 8 million kroons in 2003. Total turnover of the Atria Group was 765 million euros in 2003.