The board of the National Stock Exchange of Lithuania (NSEL) has decided to remove shares in Grafobal Vilnius, the paper and paperboard packaging manufacturer, from the bourse's Current List of Trading with effect from 1 November, the Baltic News Service has reported.
Saulius Malinauskas, director of the NSEL Listing Department, said the decision to de-list Grafobal Vilnius' shares was taken by common agreement between the stock exchange and the company's management.
"As the company's shares have not been traded either on the central market or through block deals in the past two years, the company's listing on the Current List makes no sense," Malinauskas said. He noted that Grafobal Vilnius' management had approved the de-listing decision as well.
A total of 1,772,937 shares in Grafobal Vilnius will be removed from the Current List. The company's shares were quoted at Litas 2.80 (€0.8) a share, well below their nominal value of Litas 5.0, on 6 August 1998, the last time they were traded on the central market.
Under the NSEL de-listing rules, Grafobal Vilnius' shares will be included into the tier of unlisted securities to which central market procedures apply for a period of six months starting 1 November in order to protect investors' interests. The shares will be moved into the market of unlisted securities later.
The company announced an audited net profit of Litas1.05 million on a turnover of Litas 24.2 million for the full year 2001 and is the largest paper packaging company in the Baltic region.
In its first half year results, the company cited currency fluctuations as a reason for flagging profits and said that further impact could well be felt in the second half of the year. The company posted a net profit of €75,000, in the first half of this year, below expectations.
Grafobal Vilnius is currently 83.3 per cent owned by the Slovak company Grafobal. The Lithuanian company had 355 shareholders in total.