RIGA - Rietumu Banka announced that it would soon establish a new company, RB Investment, for funding various business projects in the Baltic states and new EU member states.
The bank's vice president, Aleksandrs Kalinovskis, said that the company, which should be launched this month, would not disperse loans but would fund projects in return for receiving capital shares, adding that such a set up will allow the bank to control and monitor the investments. He said that the bank had already implemented a number of such investment projects worth a total of around 1 million lats (1.5 million euros) and that investments this year would reach around 2 million lats.
The companies the bank plans to invest in will be announced in around two weeks. Kalinovskis said that the bank would acquire stakes of up to 10 percent in the companies it chose for investments.
