"We cannot confirm at the moment how much money will be paid back to uninsured creditors, because that depends on a great deal of factors, such as loan portfolio sales (...) and the sale of other assets, for example, Finasta and Snoro Lizingas (Snoras Leasing)," he said in a press release.
The amount of money to be paid back to individual creditors will depend on the number of creditor claims and the ranking of creditors, Cooper said.
"Bearing all this in mind, it would be wrong and irresponsible to think that large amounts of money will be repaid within the next couple of years," he said.
Negotiations on the investment bank Finasta, the consumer finance business Snoro Lizingas (Snoras Leasing) and other assets of the nationalized bank Snoras are in an advanced stage, according to Cooper.
"We are quite advanced in our talks on the sale of Finasta, Snoro Lizingas and some other assets," Cooper said at a news conference in Vilnius after the first meeting of Snoras' creditors on Tuesday.
It will be up to the creditors' committee to take decisions on when and what assets will be sold, he said.
The bankruptcy administrator said back in early May that talks with investors on the sale of the Finasta Group, Snoro Lizingas and more than 230 Snoras minibanks were nearing completion, but added that no deals could be closed until the appointment of the creditors' committee.
The Eversus.lt online news site then quoted unofficial sources as saying that the UK-based merchant bank Omada Capital could have submitted the best bid for the Finasta Group, at around 10 million euros.
Lietuvos Paštas (Lithuanian Post) and the mobile payments service provider Mokipay have been mentioned in the media as the strongest contenders to buy the chain of Snoras retail banking kiosks.
Talks on Snoro Lizingas involve the sale of the entire business and the leasing portfolio. Analysts have said that Snoro Lizingas could fetch some 10 million to 15 million litas (EUR 3-4.35 mln).
Balance sheet yet to change
The balance sheet of Snoras will still change in the future, but its value will not increase, Cooper says.
"The latest balance sheet as of 7 December 2011 has been made available in the report that has been published on the website. It looks as though the balance sheet will require further adjustment, because we have discovered some assets that are, to put it mildly, not where they belong," Cooper said at a news conference in Vilnius after the first meeting of Snoras' creditors.
The bank's balance sheet in the future will depend on many aspects, he said.
"Can I give you a reliable balance sheet now? The answer is no. What that balance sheet will be like will depend on the realization of the loan portfolio. We have issued 110,000 loans. That will also depend on what happens with other assets and how we will be able to recover the assets that have been illegally used," the administrator said.
According to publicly available data, Snoras' assets, as of 7 December, totaled 3.9 billion litas (EUR 1.13 b), while creditors' undisputed claims amounted to 6.523 billion litas.
