VILNIUS - Vilniaus Bankas, Lithuania's largest bank by assets, began floating a 100 million litas (29 million euro) issue of one-year bills on March 26.
The securities commission registered an issue of 1 million discounted bonds with a face value of 100 litas and annual yield of 2.5 percent.
Vilniaus Bankas, which is owned by Scandinavia's SEB group, said it would use the funds for disbursing new credits and refinancing interbank loans. The placement of securities will last 40 days and end on May 4.
Vilniaus Bankas mortgage bank recently sold a 100 million litas issue of one-year bills that carried a yield of 2.9 percent.
Vilniaus Bankas reported a preliminary net profit of 132.3 million litas for 2003, the largest annual profit ever recorded by any Lithuanian commercial bank.
The banking group projects its assets rising to 10 billion litas this year.
