Reply to a malicious anonymous letter relating to Petrol's operations
The company »Petrol« and its Management Act Transparently and Legally
Ljubljana, 2nd June – The anonymous letter is full of untruths which are not based on facts. We expect that the police and the prosecutor's office will deal with the matter seriously, find out who the authors are and take prompt measures against them. We believe that such pressures on the management of Petrol result from the company’s good performance.
The Slovenian media have received an anonymous letter containing many untruths relating to Petrol's and its management's business with the company EUROLUXPETROL (ELP). Below, there is an explanation and some facts about the connections between the companies Petrol and ELP.
The company Petrol and its present Management Board manage the company's business transparently and legally. Petrol has not purchased a stake in ELP. Petrol has not signed a sales and purchase agreement for the acquisition of any stake in ELP. Consequently, Petrol has not transferred any funds for the purchase of ELP. Petrol has not signed any letter of intent for the purchase of a stake in ELP. Up to now, the Supervisory Board of Petrol has never discussed the purchase of ELP.
At Petrol, we are not aware of any companies in the alleged tax haven of Vaduz (Liechtenstein) and we are not engaged in any business with such companies (as far as we know, Liechtenstein is not a tax haven any more). We do not know the company “Alona Oil Consulting”, nor have we ever been engaged in any business transaction with this company. There is no information on the registration of such a company in the register of companies in Liechtenstein.
In the scope of our strategy to expand our activities in SE Europe, Petrol constantly studies potential options for the development of our service station network. Among other things, on 15th March 2010 we expressed our interest to have a meeting with ELP to discuss options for purchase of their service stations (not of the entire company). We also carried out the internal valuation of service stations, but have not received any official response from ELP. However, in this process we signed an agreement with Erste Bank for investment advice and representation of our interests in the case of purchase.
We would like to point out that the false report in the form of a malicious anonymous letter contains many untruths which are not based on facts, the only purpose of which is to discredit the transparent business and good results achieved by the present Management Board and the Supervisory Board of Petrol, and to attempt to injure the reputation of the entire company. The management of Petrol will not allow this and will file criminal charges against the authors for giving false information.
As such serious accusations represent a direct assault on both the institutions of the executive authorities and the major business entities in the state, we expect that the police and the prosecutor's office will deal with the matter seriously, find out who the authors are and take prompt measures against them in accordance with relevant regulations valid in the Republic of Slovenia.
In the past, the management of Petrol suffered strong pressures which we understand to be a consequence of the successful changes within Petrol introduced by the present Management Board to the benefit of the company. This is proved by good three-month business results: the Petrol Group’s net sales revenues amounted to EUR 607m, up 9% from the figure achieved in the first three months of 2009 and up 6% from the planned figure. Net profit for the period amounted to EUR 9m, which is better than in the same period of 2009 when the Petrol Group generated loss totalling EUR 5.6m, and exceeds by 2% the planned figure.
The Management Board of Petrol d.d., Ljubljana
