OREANDA-NEWS. May 19, 2009. AS Valga Lihatoostus (Valga Meatpacking Company), a holding of the Finnish Atria group, and two other Estonian meatpackers, AS Woro Kommerts and AS Vastse-Kuuste Lihatoostus, signed a merger agreement on Thursday whereby the latter two went into Atria's ownership.

Both the meatpackers will continue their operations under the existing trademarks and with the present organizations.

The Estonian Competition Board granted Atria permission to buy Woro Kommerts and Vastse-Kuuste Lihatoostus in July 2008.

The parties have agreed that the price of the transaction will not be made public.

Operations of Valga Lihatoostus along with Woro and Vastse-Kuuste will constitute the second biggest unit on the Estonian meat-packing market with an annual turnover of nearly 657 million kroons (EUR 42 mln) a year, Atria said.

(EUR 1 = EEK 15.65).