Estonia, Legislation, Tourism, Transport

The supervisory board of the company has resolved to start an exploratory process relating to potential strategic options for the company. Citigroup Global Markets has been appointed as the financial advisor of this process, Tallinn told the stock exchange.

The strategical options under consideration must support Tallink's long-term strategy and can be linked with involving new core investors for the company, which can result in some of the existing shareholders divesting their shares, whether by way of a voluntary or mandatory take-over offer for the company or otherwise, the company said.

Tallink will make no further announcements relating to this process unless it is required or appropriate. The shipper said that no assurances can be given that any transaction will occur as a result of this process.

According to the company's stock exchange announcement Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership (Employee) II L.P. on July 6 granted a right of first refusal to purchase any or all of the shares in the company to Baltic Cruises Holding L.P., which owns 16.1% of Tallink, and Baltic Cruises Investment L.P., which owns 5.51% of the shipper.

The three companies also agreed to only divest shares they owned in the same transaction, at the same time, on the same economic terms, including price, and otherwise on substantially similar terms. The agreement is terminated when none of the companies hold shares in Tallink.

The three companies own altogether 23.68% or 158.6 million shares in Tallink Group. The price of the share on Thursday closed at 0.946 euros, which would make the price of the share package 150 million euros.

Baltic Cruises acquired a shareholding in Tallink in 2012. In December of the same year Tallink announced that Baltic Cruises was the subsidiary of CVCI Growth Fund II, a fund advised by Citi Venture Capital International Advisors.