Company briefs - 2010-11-25

Estonian electricity main grid operator Elering and the European Investment Bank signed a loan agreement according to which the bank will lend around 1.2 billion kroons (76.9 million euros) to Elering to build the second Estonian-Finnish undersea electricity cable Estlink2, reports Aripaev Online. The total cost of building EstLink 2 is 320 million euros. European Union support forms 100 million euros. The rest will be financed 50:50 by Elering and Finnish main grid company Fingrid Oy. Considering the other loan obligations Elering has, loan volume will grow from the current 190 million euros to 300 million euros in four years.

The Maxima supermarket chain intends to open around ten new supermarkets in Estonia next year and plans to expand with the same speed in the coming years, reports Postimees Online. Maxima Eesti CEO Renatas Vaitkevicius said that the Estonian economy has by now recovered sufficiently to continue with expansion. “While in the past two years, the economic fall required freezing of expansion plans, now it is time to unfreeze them,” said Vaitkevicius. The new stores to be opened next year mean creation of over 600 jobs. Vaitkevicius said one wish is to open the first Maxima XX supermarket in Tallinn, since in other Estonian large cities this format is very popular.