Banks, Energy, Financial Services, Latvia, Markets and Companies, Transport

Norvik Ieguldijumu Parvaldes Sabiedriba has acquired Winergy from Ansager Global Limited, a company registered in British Virgin Islands. The changes were recorded in the Commercial Register yesterday.

Igor Smolin, deputy chairman at Norvik Ieguldijumu Parvaldes Sabiedriba and deputy head of Norvik Banka council, is the sole board member at Winergy.

At the beginning of September, Norvik Banka said that meaningful positive progress had been achieved in the Winergy case recently. At the end of August, attachments were removed from the property owned by Winergy, in particular, from three wind turbines, one substation, monetary funds; additionally, future cash flows was released from whole wind park.

At present Winergy and Norvik Banka have a debt restructuring agreement concluded, according to which the released cash flows have already been directed towards repayment of the interest accrued and of a part of the principal amount of the loan, the bank said.

"Winergy's net cash flow earns as a result of its economic activity in the amount of more than EUR 4 mln a year will allow the company to discharge all loan liabilities in future in full and pay the interest income provided for by the loan agreement," the bank said in a statement.

At the same time, some part of Winergy is still under constraint. The bank together with Winergy keep working actively on complete release of the assets in the nearest future. "However, Norvik Banka, being the affected party, will anyway regain the full right on these assets as soon as the legal proceedings end, as the said assets have been attached for the sole purpose of compensating the bank's (as the affected party's) proprietary interests," said the bank.

Norvik Banka has already recently received an offer from a potential American investor on purchasing these assets for EUR 59 mln provided that all the legal proceedings come to an end by October 1. Thus, Norvik Banka sees an opportunity to resolve this entire situation quickly provided that the legal system of Latvia operates in accordance with the EU and OECD standards and does not allow reoccurrence, under this case, of such fundamental mistakes and violation of the legislation and the rights of both the creditor and the affected party.

According to LETA archive, several years ago Winergy signed a loan agreement with Norvik Banka, but later both sides were involved in a legal dispute. Last fall, however, Winergy and Norvik Banka agreed on settlement of all of their disputes.

This past June, Norvik Banka was the eighth largest bank in Latvia in terms of assets, according to the Association of Latvian Commercial Banks. Grigory Guselnikov is the key shareholder in Norvik Banka.