EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Retail

The process will begin later this month with going-out-of-business sales at Prisma stores. Prisma will fully honor its obligations to suppliers and service providers, said the company.

At the beginning of this year, SOK began to revise its international business strategy, and came to the conclusion that Prisma market shares in Latvia and Lithuania were not big enough to ensure profitability, said SOK Executive Vice President Jorma Vehvilainen.

He said Prisma supermarkets in Latvia and Lithuania were too large for the countries' populations and residents' purchasing power. Furthermore, Prisma operations in Latvia were impacted by the authorities' decision to close the building of the supermarket on Deglava Street in Riga.

SOK will continue operations in Estonia where it has eight Prisma stores, and in St. Petersburg where there are sixteen Prisma stores. SOK is planning to further expand its market shares and increase the number of stores in both countries.

At the moment, SOK has three stores in Latvia and four in Lithuania.

Prisma Latvija was registered in 2006, the company's share capital is EUR 7.451 mln. SOK is the sole owner of the company. SOK, founded in 1904, is part of S Group.