Regarding payment of higher interest to green bond holders
AUGA Group, AB (hereinafter referred to as the Company) has received a letter from the Financial Market Supervision Authority of the Bank of Lithuania stating its position that the Act/360 day count convention must be applied when calculating the annual interest payable on the Company's 20,000 bonds with a nominal value of EUR 1,000 each, issued in accordance with the base prospectus approved by the Bank of Lithuania on 25 November 2019, ISIN LT0000404238 (hereinafter referred to as the Bonds).
The Company disagrees with such assessment of the situation, since the Bond issue documents must be viewed as a whole, without singling out any one of the documents separately. The interest rate on the Bonds and the manner in which they have to be paid were explicitly indicated in the documentation relating to the Bonds as well as communicated to investors during meetings with them. Moreover, no investor has approached the Company taking the position that he has received less interest than he should have received under the Bond issue documents.
However, the Company, for which investor relations and reputation are of the highest priority, informs the current and former holders of the Bonds that the Company will not contest the position of the Bank of Lithuania, although it sees legal grounds to do so, and will disburse the additional funds to current and former holders of the Bonds, by making an additional payment both in addition to the interest paid on the Bonds on 17 December 2020 (to the holders of the Bonds who were entitled to receive it) and by increasing the future payments by recalculating the interest payable until the redemption of the Bonds in accordance with the Act/360 day count convention; therefore, the annual interest rate payable on the Bonds effectively increases from 6% to 6.1% in a leap year. The interest rate will be 6.083% in a non-leap year.
On 7 June 2021, the Company transferred the relevant additional funds in respect of the interest on the Bonds accrued up to 17 December 2020 to Nasdaq CSD, SE, through which they are to be distributed to the persons entitled to receive them.
Person authorised to provide additional information:
Mindaugas Ambrasas, AUGA group, AB CFO
Phone:
Email:
