Dissonant documents on owners of 27,55% shares of

Latvian Shipping Company have been submitted –

there is no clarity on true ownership of these shares

The Board of the public joint stock company Latvijas kuģniecība (Latvian Shipping Company) (LASCO) has found several discrepancies and contradictions in documents submitted by several legal entities in order to as if prove their ownership rights to 27,55% shares of LASCO. Performing investigation of these mutually dissonant documents, LASCO Board has concluded that at present owners of 27,55% of LASCO shares cannot be established.

LASCO Board considers that shareholders owning the said 27,55 % LASCO shares, mislead deliberately the Financial and Capital Market Commission (FKTK), LASCO and other investors of the company, concealing the true owners of this share capital. LASCO has also informed FKTK about activities of these shareholders, in result of which Financial Instrument Market Law has been violated, submitting all available documents. The LASCO Board holds the opinion that manipulations, performed by 27,55% shares of LASCO are directed at maliciously intended misuse of ownership rights to these shares, therefore considering the necessity to ensure protection of interests of LASCO shareholders and investors, the use of these voting rights is not to be allowed due to the fact that several laws have been violated and the true owners of the shares cannot be established.

The opinion of the LASCO Board is based on the fact that on February 7, 2008 LASCO received an announcement issued by JSC International Baltic Investments Ltd (IBI) and signed by Arnis Nīcgalis on acquisition of a qualifying holding in the amount of 27,55% or 55 099 352 bearer’s shares in LASCO. The acquisition date of a qualifying holding, mentioned in the announcement, is February 4, 2008.

Yet only a few days later LASCO received other announcements of a holding acquired directly or indirectly of LASCO totally in the same amount as declared by IBI. These announcements were submitted by companies Ojay Limited and Eastgate Properties Limited, indicating that the date of acquisition of the respective holding was also February 4, 2008, which was already simultaneously indicated by IBI in just the same amount.

Announcements of Ojay and Eastgate are signed by Ņina Gļebova. Suspicions about fictitious or other manipulative transactions between IBI, Ojay and Eastgate have been roused by the fact that the sender of the announcements signed by Ņ.Gļebova is the company Heidelberga Audits, where one of the owners is the same A.Nīcgalis, who is at the same time IBI official as well.

It must be noted that Ojay and Eastgate have been LASCO shareholders already since 2002, and against the regulations of the law LASCO has not until the present time received any announcement on the loss of the holding from the said companies.

These mutually conflicting announcements prove that at present it cannot be precisely established who is the true owner of 27,55% of LASCO shares, and such information cannot be obtained from the documents up until the present moment submitted by the owners of the shares or their representatives to LASCO.

For further information:

Marita Ozolina-Tumanovska

Head of PR Departament

Phone: (+371) 67020120, 29287169

E-mail: marita.ozolina@lscgroup.lv