Investment banker sells holding in bathtub manufacturer
02.02.2012, 13:30Estonian banker Rain Lõhmus has sold his holding in Estonian bathtub manufacturer Balteco to the company’s supervisory board chairman Jaak Pählapuu who now owns almost 30 percent of the company, writes Äripäev.
Pählapuu did not comment the sales price nor his plans after becoming a majority shareholder, saying that there were confidentiality agreements.
Answering a question whether he was satisfied with his investment in Balteco, Lõhmus said at the end of last year: “Fifty-sixty, like one famous Scandinanvian skijumper once said. I can say that you can always do better, but it’s not too bad.”
Lõhmus had acquired his holding from Mati Vann, the company’s founder, reportedly paying 27.5 million kroons for them.
It is also believed that Lõhmus helped Vann to finance his new project, manufacturing health pods, in a new company Neoq.
Balteco lost 1.6 million kroons in 2010 on revenues of 68.4 million. A year earlier its loss amounted to 9 million kroons at revenues of 69 million. Between 2005 and 2010 the company paid out a million kroons in dividends a year.