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Latvijas Piens still owes EUR 3 million to Trikata KS milk cooperative

BC, Riga, 24.11.2015.Print version
Trikata KS milk cooperative still has not received any money from Latvijas Piens dairy plant which owes the cooperative more than EUR 3 million therefore it has been decided that any further efforts to reanimate Trikata KS would be futile, the cooperative's insolvency administrator, Rudite Klikuca, told LETA.

"Regardless of the warning notices that had been sent to the plant [Latvijas Piens], they have not made a single payment towards repayment of their debt. It is impossible for the cooperative to resume operations therefore I am working on a plan for sale of movable property that will be followed by a bankruptcy procedure. I expect that any actual sale of the assets could take place in late December or early January next year," she said.

 

Asked whether there were any potential buyers interested in acquiring the controlling stake (53.66%) in Latvijas Piens currently held by Trikata KS as the largest shareholder of the dairy plant, Klikuca gave an evasive answer.

 

"Nobody has turned to me so far. There have been no specific offers," she said.

 

The insolvency administrator said that, despite having ceased business operations, Trikata KS had repaid all debts to farmers for milk they had supplied to the cooperative.

 

As reported, Trikata KS was declared insolvent by the Valmiera District Court on August 6 as the cooperative was unable to pay its members for milk that the Trikata KS supplied to the Latvijas Piens dairy plant, which, in turn, had run up a debt of EUR 3,036,600 to Trikata KS.

 

Trikata KS CEO, Uldis Krievars, previously told LETA that Trikata KS was planning to sell its shares in Latvijas Piens so it could pay its debts to the cooperative's members.

 

The other Latvijas Piens shareholders – cooperative societies Latraps and VAKS – offered to buy the shares, but their offer was turned down because the price they were willing to pay for the shares was deemed to be inadequate.

 

According to Firmas.lv, Trikata KS turnover in 2014 totaled EUR 20.85 million, down from EUR 25.90 million in 2013. The company posted EUR 638,260 in losses in 2014, compared to a loss of EUR 15,228 in 2013.

 

Construction of Latvijas Piens dairy plant began in September 2011. The total investment was EUR 14.279 million. Trikata KS provided EUR 1.42 million for the project, approximately EUR 9.24 million was borrowed from banks, and the European Union's funding for the project totaled EUR 4.26 million.

 

Latvijas Piens management explained financial difficulties by the crisis situation in the dairy sector in general and an erroneous decision to focus on making industrial products which have seen their prices to drop steeply on the world markets in the last year-and-a-half.

 

Latvijas Piens turnover last year totaled EUR 28.33 million, compared to EUR 37.21 million the company turned over in 2013, and its loss reached EUR 1.26 million as opposed to a profit of EUR 823,805 in 2013.

 






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