An Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders of "Christophoros D. Konstantinidis Construction SA" was held today, Thursday, 20 January 2000.
An Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders of "Christophoros D. Konstantinidis Construction SA" was held today, Thursday, 20 January 2000.At the General Meeting, the first to take place since the acquisition of a majority holding in the company by the Latsis Group and the EFG Eurobank group, Mr. Lambros G. Anagnostopoulos, the new Managing Director and member of the Board, Mr. Evangelos Chronis, General Manager of the Latsis Group in Greece and member of the Board, and Mr. Nicolaos Karamouzis, member of the new Board of the company and representing EFG Eurobank, presented the ambitious business objectives of the company's new development strategy and its long-term plans and prospects. The speakers reported that, under the new system of ownership and management, the company will be much more active across a wider range of business sectors and will concentrate, in particular, on real-estate ownership, where it hopes to play a leading role. More specifically, the company will operate in the following fields:1. The development, operation and management of real estate, and in particular the undertaking of high-yield projects, such as the development and management of shopping centres, theme parks and hotel complexes;2. The development of activities in selected service sectors. The General Meeting took a series of decisions in the framework of the company's new development plans. These included approval of the following:1. Changes in the name, registered office and purpose of the company. The company will be renamed "Lamda Development SA - Real Estate Holdings and Development", with its registered office in the Municipality of Athens, and a wider range of business objectives.2. The company's capital will be increased via a capitalisation of reserves totalling GRD 483 m, through the issuing of 4,830,000 new bearer shares with a nominal value of 100 drachmas each, to be distributed free of charge to the shareholders at a rate of two new shares for each old share. 3. An increase of GRD 40 billion in the share capital of the company, paid up in cash and with a partial restriction of the old shareholders' preferential rights, in order that 6,250 shares are distributed to selected executives and associates of the company. The increase in share capital will take place by means of an issuing of 7,245,000 ordinary bearer shares with voting rights, each with a nominal value of 100 drachmas and a sale price of 5,500 drachmas, distributed at the rate of one-to-one after the distribution of the free shares. Part of the fresh capital raised by the increase will be used to buy out selected companies already active in the real-estate market and, more generally, to finance the company's wider development plans. With this in view, it was announced that the following will take place within one month:A. Acquisition of 100 per cent of shares of Dimiourgia SA, a member-company of the Latsis Group, which has long experience in real-estate development and management as well as large-scale integrated design, planning and supervision projects, mostly private. Among the projects in which Dimiourgia is currrently involved are:
- The reconstruction of a listed office building with a floor area of 6,000 square metres in Kifissia, owned by another company, for commercial exploitation.
- Participation in the consortium which has submitted a tender for the renovation and management of the Army Share-Fund Building, in collaboration with Alpha Credit Bank, EFG Eurobank, J & P - AVAX, Elliniki Technodomiki, Interamerican and Lend Lease. In addition, a number of plans are under review for the immediate future for the development of other projects, including the King George Hotel.
- Management of the construction of the Elefsina Hospital burns unit.
- The property in Kifissia which Dimiourgia is currently converting into 6,000 square metres of office space. Leasing of these offices is expected to produce annual revenue of the order of GRD 600 million.
- A 3,000 square metre plot in the centre of Kifissia, also scheduled for development.
Mr Anagnostopoulos and Mr Chronis announced that, as part of the Latsis Group's new multidimensional development strategy in the field of property and related services, Lamda Development and its subsidiaries will also become active in the following areas:
- Large-scale private development projects such as shopping centres, hotel complexes and recreational facilities in Greece and SE Europe, through the investment of considerable sums of capital.
- Project management and planning, a sector in which the Latsis Group already possesses valuable experience and advanced know-how. Some of these projects will be associated with BOT activities and the 2004 Olympic Games.
- The acquisition of selected large-scale properties, some of which have already been identified.
- The provision of integrated services for airports in Greece and other countries. Here the Latsis Group will be building on the collaboration it has already developed with Swissair and its subsidiary Swissport International, a relationship which will now devolve to Lamda Development. The object of this collaboration will be to provide integrated services at airports in Greece and abroad. Swissport Hellas, in which the Latsis Group and Swissport International each have a 50 per cent holding, recently obtained a licence to provide passenger and baggage-moving services at the Hellenikon airport in Athens, and the firm has submitted a tender for a similar licence to operate at the new Athens International Airport.
- Services in the fields of recreation and transport. Among the plans under examination is the acquisition and development of the shipbuilding and repair unit Hephaestus, which specialises in repair and maintenance work on high-specification pleasure craft. Given its excellent location - at the intersection of the new Athens Ring Motorway and the Athens-Patras motorway - in conjunction with its extensive coastal site, including harbour and land facilities, the firm enjoys excellent prospects for further development, centred on the provision of a wider range of integrated services. The purely construction activities which were the company's main object of business under the previous owners will not be transferred to Lamda Development and do not form part of the new management's business plans. When the process of splitting off the construction branch has been completed, a new Board of Directors will be put forward, comprising the following: Chairman: Spyros Makridakis; Managing Director: Lambros Anagnostopoulos; Members: Evangelos Chronis, General Manager of the Latsis Group in Greece, Yiorgos Callimopoulos, lawyer, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Athens University, and Nicolaos Karamouzis, financial advisor at EFG Eurobank. It was also announced that Lamda Development intends to embark on the process that will lead to its transfer to the main market of the Athens Stock Exchange. The speakers concluded the presentation by pointing out that the medium and long-term objectives of Lamda Development are very wide-ranging and that the new management will move rapidly and effectively to ensure that the company evolves into one of the largest and most effective firms in the real estate services and development sector. At the same time, the growth of Lamda Development will involve investments in a series of parallel and related activities, some of them currently carried out by other companies in the Latsis Group. This expansion may take the form of investment in existing companies or participation in new business formations resulting from strategic alliances - such as, for example, the acquisition of a small holding (5-10%) in Petrola Hellas. Cirricula Vitae Spyros Makridakis, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lamda DevelopmentSpyros Makidakis studied at New York University, graduating in 1969 having completed his doctoral thesis. He then occupied positions as consultant to various international organisations and government agencies around the world. He has been a teacher and researcher in numerous European and American organisations, including researcher at IIM Berlin, ICAME at Stanford University and visiting professor at MIT and Harvard. Today, he is on the teaching and research staff of INSEAD and holds the post of Professor at the University of Piraeus. Apart from his teaching and consulting experience and skills, Professor Makridakis is the author of twenty books and more than 110 articles. In 1998 and 1999 he was elected 'best teacher' at INSEAD. Lambros Anagnostopoulos, Managing Director of Lamda Development
Lambros Anagnostopoulos graduated in 1986 from the Department of Marine Engineering and Shipbuilding of the National Technical University. From 1986 to 1988, he took an M.Sc. course in Ocean Systems at MIT and an M.Sc. in Management at the Sloan School of Management, also at MIT. From 1988 to 1992, he worked consecutively as associate, consultant and manager in the American and British offices of the international business consultancy firm Pugh Roberts Associates - PA Consulting Group. Since 1992 he has been an executive (Director of Business Planning) at SETE SA, a Geneva-based company of the Latsis Group, and since 1994 he has been Assistant to the Chairman. His duties include providing advice on strategy, reorganisation and development for a number of companies in the Group which are active in various business sectors in numerous countries. Mr Anagnostopoulos has worked on project and investment evaluation and on company associations and mergers. He is a member of the Boards of Directors of companies in Greece, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Finland.