Simon Boddy, Member of the Supervisory Council of JSC Latvian Shipping Company (NASDAQ OMX RIGA: LSC1R) and Chairman of the Management Board of JSC Ventspils nafta (NASDAQ OMX RIGA: VNF1R) which owns 49.94% of Latvian Shipping company – speaking today on the vision of the VN group and the associated company LSC, indicated that in the case of Latvian Shipping Company (LSC) there is a mixture of assets – the company is in shipping business, but also owns large pieces of real estate, and is involved in court cases, one of which is expected to bring the company 135 million USD – a recovery asset. „In order to maximise the shareholder value – so, that investors know in what type of business they are investing - my vision would be – spilt LSC into a pure tanker company and a real estate company. And to do that – we would need to look for partners in the real estate business who would have money and development ideas, and be interested in managing such potentially great sites as the Preses nams building and Rīgas Līcis, which could be a world class health centre and SPA. We hope that the Latvian real estate market is back on the way up – maybe slowly but will steadily recover”, explained Boddy.

Boddy also commented on the London court case where the claimants are several single vessel companies in the LSC group – and the defendants are the corporate and individual alleged beneficiaries of the massive, fraudulent charter schemes. He emphasised that this is a solely LSC case and all recovered funds (plus expended costs) will go to LSC. The expected amount that the company will get back is 135 million USD which will put it in much better shape for the future. The timing of the recovery of assets cannot be predicted now.

Boddy also emphasized that such charter party schemes and all other improper practices have completely stopped under the new management.  Also Chairman of the Management Board of LSC Simon Blaydes stressed that a detailed review of all contracts was undertaken by the company in 2011 with actions taken to change suppliers. This has led to the elimination of all middle parties between LSC and the end users.

 

Additional information:

Ilze Nagla

Public Relations Manager

JSC “ Latvijas kuģniecība”

Tel .: +371-29267454, +371-67715914

e-mail: ilze.nagla@vnafta.lv