Company briefs - 2004-04-15

  • 2004-04-15
Utenos Trikotazas, Lithuania's leading knitwear manufacturer, said it planned to buy up to 10 percent of its own shares - in the range of 4 litas (1.16 euro) to 1litas per share - to support its share price on the stock exchange.

The share buyback proposal is on the agenda of the April 20 shareholders meeting. SBA, the multibusiness concern, owns 54 percent of Utenos Trikotazas' outstanding stock. The foreign equity funds Firebird, Danske Capital Finland and Amber Trust hold a combined stake of 28.6 percent in the company.

The Finnish Stora Enso timber group said it would build a 13.million euro facility for the production of glued laminated beams in Estonia's Imavere sawmill. According to plans, the facility will go into operation at the end of the year and achieve full capacity of 80,000 cubic meters by 2006. When the new Imavere facility comes online, Stora Enso Timber said it would become one of the leading glued timber suppliers to the Japanese market.

On March 28 Austrian Airlines renewed its flights to and from Riga, a year-and-a-half after having cancelled the route once it was allowed to fly to the Latvian capital only four days a week. The new route will run seven days a week. "We wouldn't have left at all, but Latvia's entering the EU was the first chance for us to come back," said an airline representative. Airline officials said they expected more passengers to fly the Riga-Vienna route, and to win over clients the airline intends to offer improved service.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has made an additional equity investment in Lithuania's Sonex Group, one of the leading IT companies in the Baltics, through the fund manager Scandinavian Baltic Development. The EBRD purchased a new equity issue by Sonex, raising its stake in the company to 36 percent from 29 percent, Sonex said in a press release. The stake of Arunas Bartusevicius (photo), the founder and chairman of the Sonex Group, has decreased to 64 percent from 71 percent, according to the press release.

Estonia's state-run energy company Eesti Energia is seeking 3.million litas (950,000 euros) in compensation from the Lithuanian government for rejecting its winning bid for a majority stake in Rytu Skirstomieji Tinklai, the operator of the power grid in eastern Lithuania. The amount consists of actual expenses of participation in the tender. The State Property Fund is expected to recommend that the government refrain from paying the claim, though some experts will advise the government to pay the amount in full since a prolonged dispute with Estonia might affect a new tender on the sell-off of RST.

The Estonian Economic Affairs and Communications Ministry has set up a working group to consider the merger of all Estonian airports into one business unit. Rein Loik, board chairman of state-owned Tallinna Lennujaam (Tallinn Airport), was cool about the idea, saying that all the risks needed to be carefully considered. "As a company we would not like to see productivity fall as a result, particularly at present when we are planning big investments and [when] airlines are pressuring for lower airport taxes," Loik said.