Estonia's Trigon Capital brings in new investor

The Estonian investment bank Trigon Capital has brought a new investor into its circle of owners in a closed stock issue; the name of the investor will be made public on Tuesday. Involvement of additional capital was necessary to expand business, spokespeople for Trigon told BNS on Monday. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the investor comes from Finland. Trigon Capital, which operated under the name Hansa Investeeringute AS (Hansa Investment) until the end of 1999, was owned until spring 1999 in equal halves by Hansapank and Trigon Holdings Ltd, a company of businessman Joakim Helenius. A stock issue in April 1999 reduced the stake of Hansapank in the investment bank to 33 percent. In October the same year Hansapank sold its remaining holding to Best Invest, a company of Hansa Investeeringud employees, for 15 million kroons (USD 0.85 mln). The owners then decided on a name change, and the investment bank is known as Trigon Capital AS since January 2000. The company operated with a loss of 33.96 million kroons in 1998 and made a loss of 4.45 million kroons in 1999. It finished the year 2000 with a profit of 30.54 million kroons.