Claim rights against Air Baltic Corporation to be auctioned

The insolvency administrator of Latvijas Krājbanka, KPMG Baltics, and the insolvency administrator of Bank Snoras, Mr Neil Hunter Cooper, will sell the claim rights against AS Air Baltic Corporation at an open auction. The claim rights are held by SIA Atlantijas Biroji, a subsidiary of Latvijas Krājbanka. The nominal value of the claim rights is EUR 73 533 973.25, which is also the auction floor price. The proceeds from selling the claim rights will be used for payments to the bank’s creditors.

The auction will be held at 11:00 am on 4 November2013, LKB’s offices at Ganību dambis 17A, Riga. All interested parties shall make a security deposit in the amount of EUR 1,42 million using the account as specified by Latvijas Krājbanka before the auction date.

Latvijas Krājbanka and Bank Snoras had granted millions of lats in loans to Baltijas Aviācijas sistēmas (BAS), the former shareholder of Air Baltic Corporation (ABC), which BAS has used for lending to and investing in ABC. As BAS did not fulfill its liabilities to the banks (liabilities exceeding EUR 66 M), Latvijas Krājbanka and Snoras enforced the commercial pledge, which was the only collateral of these loans. As a result of this, Atlantijas Biroji, a subsidiary of Latvijas Krājbanka, acquired the claim rights against ABC.

Air Baltic Corporation (ABC) is a stock company that was established in 1995. Its core business is air transportation of passengers. The primary shareholder is the Latvian state with 99.8% of stock. In 2012 ABC carried over 3.08 million passengers.

Air Baltic Corporation offers flights to and from Aalesund, Amsterdam, Athens, Baku, Barcelona, Bari, Bergen, Berlin, Billund, Brussels, Budapest, Chisinau, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Helsinki, Heviz-Balaton, Istanbul, Kaliningrad, Kaunas, Kiev, Lappeenranta, Larnaca, London, Malta, Milan, Minsk, Moscow, Munich, Nice, Odessa, Olbia, Oslo, Palanga, Paris, Prague, Riga, Rijeka, Rome, Simferopol, St. Petersburg, Stavanger, Stockholm, Tallinn, Tampere, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Tel Aviv, Turku, Venice, Vienna, Vilnius, Warsaw, Zurich.

The Air Baltic Corporation fleet currently consists of 25 aircraft – five Boeing 737-500, eight Boeing 737-300 and twelve Bombardier Q400Next Gen (information from www.airbaltic.com).

More information http://www.airbaltic.com/company-history