Earnings of the listed and to-be-listed companies

ä The garments maker AS Baltika has posted a non-audited net profit of 6.2 million kroons ($459,600) for the first nine months of 1998, up 12 percent or 700,000 kroons from the same period last year. The group's net sales amounted to 217 million kroons, an increase of 9 percent or 17.6 million kroons from the same nine months in 1997. Baltika's biggest subsidiary, AS Baltman, generated net sales of 52.1 million kroons during January-September, accounting for 24 percent of the consolidated net sales.

ä The Tallinn-based car seat-belt maker Norma earned a net profit of 33.3 million kroons on net sales of 337.3 million kroons during the first 10 months of 1998. Compared with the same period last year, sales were down by 21.9 percent and profits by 70.9 percent, the company said in a statement to the Tallinn Stock Exchange. The group's parent company posted a loss of 3.1 million kroons on a sales turnover of 43.1 million kroons for October. The parent company's operating profit in October totaled 7.6 million kroons. Finance Director Peep Pihotalo said the loss in October was caused mostly by the re-evaluation of investments into Norma's Russian subsidiary Norma-Osvar.

ä The Uhispank group posted a non-audited net profit of 5.2 million kroons for the first nine months of 1998. The group's total assets as of Sept. 30 stood at 17.03 billion kroons. Total assets at the end of September were up 89 percent, or by 8 billion kroons, from the same period a year ago, the bank's vice president, Ulo Suurkask, said. He said a large part of the growth came with the consolidation of Tallinna Pank. Suurkask said Uhispank's profit this year was greatly affected by the bearish East European stock markets.

Latvia

ä The insurance company Balta subscribed 12.88 million lats ($22.2 million) in premiums between January and October 1998, officials at the company told the BNS agency. The sum was 15.2 percent larger than in the same period of last year. The voluntary insurance premiums amounted to over 6.48 million lats, while the obligatory insurance premiums made up more than 6.22 million lats. The company paid out 3.71 million lats in insurance settlements in the 10 months.

Lithuania

ä Turnover at Batijos Laivu Statyba, the Lithuanian Klaipeda-based shipyard, has increased by 9 percent this year. Since January, the company has turned over 57.75 million litas ($14.44 million) in ten months as compared with 52.99 million litas last year. In October, sales amounted to 12.91 million litas, representing a rise by a factor of two, year-on-year. The Baltic shipyard posted 6.89 million litas in net profits over the January-October period this year, which is 32.2 percent less than over the same period last year, when 10.16 million litas were netted.

ä Ukio Bankas has posted 4.14 million litas in audited profits over the first nine months of this year, the auditing firm Deloitte & Touche announced. The bank's unaudited nine-month profit had totaled just 934,000 litas. Gintaras Jatkonis, spokesman for the bank, announced the profits increased after the audit due to auditors' instructions to transfer 3 million litas of last year's expenditures for bank restructuring to this year's profit and loss account. Ukio Bankas was restructured from its internal reserves this year. This 3 million litas profit, however, will be reflected in neither November nor December reports. The figures will be reflected after the bank's 12-month activity is audited. The bank earned 954,000 litas over the three quarters of 1997, but ended the year with 27.8 million litas in audited losses.

ä Kestutis Sumacheris, director general of the Lithuanian gas utility Lietuvos Dujos, is almost certain that the company will end the year 1998 in the red. "We will certainly end the year at a loss, because there is no way of covering the losses we have already sustained," Sumacheris told BNS. The utility's ten-month losses amounted to 21.4 million litas, whereas it posted 16.8 million litas in net profits over the entire calendar of 1997. "If we bought more gas, we might be able to cover the financial backwardness," Sumacheris believes. However, heads of the Lithuanian gas utility still have failed to come to a consensus with Gazprom, the Russian gas concern, over the price tag for gas for the fourth quarter of this year.