Latvia, Markets and Companies, Retail

The company's management report said that 2008 had been the second full year for the company in Latvia. "Sales rose by 20% and were at satisfactory level. In 2009 sales are expected to grow," said the statement.

The management said that losses had been expected. "At the end of the reporting period, the company's short-term liabilities exceeded short-term assets by 666,600 lats. Thus, in November 2008 the company signed an agreement with its parent company SOK on opening a credit line worth 5.5 million euros," said the report.

In 2009 the company plans to raise its capital by 230,000 lats. The management believes that the new credit line and increase of capital will ensure financing to solve liquidity problems, informs BNS.

Prisma Latvija expects that there will be losses as long as the company plans to open new Prisma stores. The last Prisma store was opened in the new shopping center Riga Plaza.

Prisma Latvija closed 2007 with 2.026 million lats in losses, 2.3 times higher than a year ago, while its turnover reached 9.027 million lats, which is 5.4 times more than in 2006.

Prisma Latvija now runs two stores in Latvia.

SOK is a Finnish company established in 1904. It is part of the S Group operating in trade, fuel sales, hotel business, car dealing and agriculture. SOK already has several supermarkets and several hundred smaller stores in Finland.

The Baltic subsidiaries of the SOK group have over 1,000 employees, while S Group in general employs about 28,000 people.