Hansabank's future is in Lithuania
Lithuanian customers will play a key role in Hansabank's development in the Baltic states in five years, said CEO Indrek Neivelt on Saturday.
Äripäev writes that, according to Neivelt who was speaking at an investment conference held in Tallinn, Hansabank would have over one million customers by 2007, and more than half of them will be from Lithuania.
He also said that, by that time, the chief executive of the Hansabank Group would be a Lithuanian.
Neivelt said that, by 2007, Hansabank would be the largest universal bank in the Baltic marketplace.
Answering a question about his holding in Hansabank, Neivelt said that he was satisfied with the performance of Hansabank share. However, he would be more careful in the future with investing in Hansabank's shares to avoid any suspicion about insider trading.
(BBN)

Statoil buys Shell stations in Baltics
Statoil is close to controlling around 30 percent of the Estonian market for petrol retail, writes Äripäev.
Statoil and Shell signed an agreement for the sale of Shell petrol stations to Statoil on Friday. If the deal is approved by the regulator, Statoil would become Estonia's largest petrol retailers, having more petrol station than Lukoil or Neste.
After the takeover, the number of Statoil service stations in the Baltic states would increase from 90 to 157 of which 22 are in Estonia, 32 in Latvia and 36 in Lithuania.
Although Statoil claims it will have 29 percent of the Estonian market for petrol, some competitors disagree, saying that it would be as high as 35 percent. In Latvia Statoil would have 22 percent of the market and in Lithuania 20 percent.
(BBN)

Centre-right parties won the parliamentary election in Latvia
Centre-right parties were big winners in the dramatic parliamentary elections held last Saturday in Latvia, writes Dienas bizness.
In the paper's opinion, the fact that new political parties got the majority of votes indicates that Latvians still want to believe in miracles.
How else to interpret the result where two new parties New Era and Latvian First party have 36 seats in the new parliament.
Although we wish newcomers on the political area all the luck, there are certain signs that make us sceptical, writes Dienas bizness. First of all, New Era will have too few seats in the parliament to create a viable new government, meaning that it needs a political partner.
It should not be too complicated since the ideological viewpoints of the so-called centre-right parties are very similar. However, each of the parties has their own agenda and negotiations will not be easy, writes Dienas bizness.
(BBN)