Akcinė bendrovė Ūkio bankas — Company Profile

Legal name: Akcinė bendrovė Ūkio bankas (AB Ūkio bankas)
Status: Bank’s operations were suspended by the Bank of Lithuania on 12 February 2013; part of assets and liabilities were transferred to AB Šiaulių bankas; bankruptcy/liquidation proceedings followed. The bank is no longer active as a going concern.
Industry: Commercial banking and financial services
Founded: 1989 (commonly cited as the first commercial bank established in Lithuania during the restoration of independence)
Headquarters (historical): Kaunas, Lithuania

Overview

AB Ūkio bankas was a Lithuanian commercial bank focused on retail and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) banking. Prior to its suspension in 2013, the bank offered deposits, loans, payment services, cards, and online banking, and operated a national branch network. Following regulatory intervention in 2013 due to identified risks and capital shortfalls, a portion of the bank’s viable assets and insured liabilities were transferred to AB Šiaulių bankas to safeguard customers and financial stability. The remaining entity entered insolvency proceedings.

Legal Information

Juridinis statusas: Akcinė bendrovė (public limited company), later in bankruptcy/liquidation proceedings after 2013
Įmonės kodas (company registration code): Not confirmed in the publicly accessible, reliable sources consulted for this summary. Note: as the bank is defunct, some registries restrict or archive detailed records.
PVM kodas (VAT code): Not applicable/Not available (financial institutions may have had VAT exemptions; code not reliably accessible post-closure).
Oficiali svetainė: Historically: www.ub.lt (no longer active; historical content accessible via web archives).
El. paštas: Historically used generic mailboxes (e.g., info@ub.lt). These addresses are no longer expected to be active.
Registruotos buveinės adresas (istorinis): Kaunas, Lithuania. A precise street address could not be reliably corroborated from current, authoritative public sources at the time of writing due to the bank’s closure and archival of records.
Telefonas: Not available from reliable public sources (historic numbers are no longer in service).

Business Operations

Main products/services (historical):
- Retail banking: current and savings accounts, time deposits, payment cards, consumer loans, mortgage lending, internet banking.
- SME/Corporate banking: working capital and investment loans, trade finance, cash management, payment services.
- Related financial services: bank-issued cards, e-banking, and (through associated entities) leasing solutions that were marketed to retail and SME clients.

Business model: Full-service domestic commercial bank with a focus on Lithuanian retail and SME clients, funded primarily by customer deposits and wholesale funding when available. The bank generated income from net interest margins, fees, and commissions.

Market position (pre-2013): A mid-sized bank by assets within Lithuania’s banking sector, below the largest Nordic-owned banks in size and market share, with a nationwide presence and brand recognition mainly among retail and SME customers.

History

1989–1995: Founded in 1989 amid Lithuania’s economic transformation. Developed retail and SME banking services and established initial branches.
Late 1990s–2000s: Expanded its service network and product portfolio. Shares were listed on the NASDAQ OMX Vilnius exchange (ticker commonly cited: UKB1L), supporting capital-raising efforts and public reporting.
2000s: Grew consumer and SME lending, cards, and e-banking. The bank’s controlling shareholder became widely reported as businessman Vladimiras Romanovas and related entities, with the remaining shares held by institutional and retail investors.
2011–2012: Sector-wide post-crisis pressures and supervisory scrutiny increased. The Bank of Lithuania intensified oversight in light of asset quality and related-party risk concerns reported in public sources.
2013 (February): The Bank of Lithuania suspended AB Ūkio bankas’ operations on 12 February 2013, appointed a temporary administrator, and organized the transfer of part of the bank’s assets and insured liabilities to AB Šiaulių bankas to protect depositors and financial stability.
2013 onward: The remaining entity entered bankruptcy/liquidation proceedings. Trading in shares was halted and delisting followed in line with insolvency procedures. Subsequent years involved creditor claims handling and legal processes associated with the insolvency.

Financial Information

Revenue and profitability: Detailed annual revenue and profit figures vary by year and are not consistently preserved in publicly accessible archives following the bank’s closure. Historically, AB Ūkio bankas published audited annual reports when listed (UKB1L).
Total assets (pre-2013): The bank was a mid-sized institution in Lithuania, with total assets in the multiple billions of Lithuanian litas prior to suspension; exact figures for the final period are not stated here due to source reliability constraints.
Funding/capital: As a public company, the bank periodically raised capital through share issues. Deposit funding constituted the core of liabilities.
Ownership structure (historical): Majority control was widely reported to be held by Vladimiras Romanovas (and related entities), generally cited at around two-thirds of shares prior to 2013, with the remainder publicly held by institutional and retail investors via the Vilnius exchange.
Listing: NASDAQ OMX Vilnius (historical ticker: UKB1L). Trading was halted upon suspension and delisted in line with insolvency events.

Leadership and Management (historical)

Because the bank is defunct and records are archived, the complete and final roster of executives and board members immediately prior to suspension is not comprehensively available in current open sources. The following names are cited in reliable media and public records over various periods:
- Vladimiras Romanovas — Major shareholder; at times associated with the Supervisory Board (Stebėtojų taryba) leadership in public reporting.
- Chief Executive Officer (Generalinis direktorius/Administracijos vadovas): Public reports in the years before 2013 reference executives including Gintaras Ugianskis (name variant spellings appear in English-language media).
- Board (Valdyba) and management: Several Lithuanian banking professionals served as management board members and division heads over the years (risk, finance, retail, corporate banking). Specific, final-period rosters could not be verified from current public sources.

Note: For legally authoritative historical rosters, archived annual reports or Registrų centras extracts would be required; those documents are not fully accessible in open sources at the time of this compilation.

Office Locations (historical)

Head office: Kaunas, Lithuania (exact street address not reliably confirmable from present open sources due to archival status).
Branch network: The bank operated branches and customer service units in major Lithuanian cities and towns (including Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėžys, and others).
Telephone numbers: Historical branch and hotline numbers are no longer in service and are not consistently preserved in public archives. An authoritative and complete list of all historical branch addresses and phone numbers could not be confirmed from current, reliable open sources.

Market Position and Competitors (pre-2013)

Competitors: The Lithuanian banking market was dominated by large Nordic-owned banks (e.g., Swedbank, SEB, and DNB/Nordea entities later combined into Luminor), along with domestic AB Šiaulių bankas and regional banks such as Citadele (in later years).
Market share: AB Ūkio bankas was a mid-tier participant by assets and deposits, below the largest players. Public commentary before 2013 generally positioned it in the lower half of the top 10 by assets.
Competitive profile: Emphasis on retail and SME customers, recognized brand, national coverage, and offerings such as online banking and payment cards. Post-crisis supervisory findings indicated elevated risks related to asset quality and related-party exposures.

Recent Developments

2013–2014: Suspension of operations (12 February 2013) by the Bank of Lithuania; transfer of part of assets and insured liabilities to AB Šiaulių bankas; initiation of bankruptcy/liquidation proceedings; trading in shares halted and delisting process completed per exchange rules.
After 2014: Ongoing insolvency administration activities, creditor claims processing, and legal proceedings associated with recovery and liquidation. No ongoing banking operations remain under the AB Ūkio bankas brand.

Contact Information

Important: AB Ūkio bankas no longer conducts banking activities. The historical website and emails are inactive.
- Official website (historical): www.ub.lt (inactive; see web archives for historical content)
- Email (historical): info@ub.lt (inactive)
- Registered office (historical): Kaunas, Lithuania (exact address not confirmed from current, reliable open sources)
- Customer phone (historical): Not available; historical hotlines are no longer in service.
For matters related to transferred deposits and accounts in 2013, public guidance directed customers to AB Šiaulių bankas and to Lithuania’s deposit insurance authority (Indėlių ir investicijų draudimas) at the time.

Sources and References

- Bank of Lithuania (Lietuvos bankas) — Press release: Suspension of AB Ūkio bankas activities, 12 February 2013. URL: www.lb.lt (search: “suspends activities of AB Ūkio bankas”).
- Bank of Lithuania — Press/materials on transfer of part of AB Ūkio bankas assets and liabilities to AB Šiaulių bankas, February 2013. URL: www.lb.lt (search: “Ūkio bankas transfer to Šiaulių bankas”).
- Šiaulių bankas — 2013 announcements on assumption of part of AB Ūkio bankas operations. URL: www.sb.lt (search: “Ūkio bankas 2013”).
- Nasdaq Baltic — Historical issuer information for Ūkio bankas (ticker UKB1L). URL: nasdaqbaltic.com (search: “UKB1L”).
- Wikipedia — “Ūkio bankas” (English and Lithuanian editions), providing general historical context and timeline. URL: en.wikipedia.org (search: “Ūkio bankas”).
- Lithuanian and international media coverage (2013) on the supervisory action, asset transfer, and subsequent insolvency proceedings (e.g., Reuters, The Baltic Course). URLs: news archives for February–March 2013 (search: “Ukio bankas suspended 2013”).

Notes on Data Availability

Because AB Ūkio bankas ceased operations in 2013 and entered insolvency, many operational details (exact registration/VAT codes, full historical address lists, phone numbers, and complete final rosters of executives) are archived or no longer accessible via current open public sources. Where precise confirmation was not possible from authoritative records, this profile indicates the limitation explicitly to avoid providing potentially inaccurate information.