Ants Noot is taking over the management of Eesti Gaas
As of today, Anst Noot, one of the longest-serving chancellors in Estonia and an experienced senior manager who has been in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Rural Affairs, is taking over as the chief executive of AS Eesti Gaas.
“Ants Noot is a strong manager with extensive experience and a vision, who has proven himself as the head of a large organisation for many years. Through the new chief executive, it is our intention to improve our management competence and grow from a company selling natural gas to an energy company providing a comprehensive service to the customer,” commented Ain Hanschmidt, Chairman of the Board of the holding company Infortar AS, which has acquired majority holding in Eesti Gaas.
According to Ants Noot, Eesti Gaas is undisputedly employing top specialists of their field, who have done a very good job in serving the company’s more than 40,000 customers. “First, I would like to get acquainted with the good people who work for Eesti Gaas today and create a good basis for effective future cooperation,” said Noot.
“Without having a complete overview of the company yet, I am not planning to immediately enforce reorganisations of a significant impact. However, the constantly sharpening competition in the gas and energy market from the wider perspective cannot be ignored and, taking into consideration the expansion plans of the new owners, we must certainly review the long-term strategic goals of Eesti Gaas, update the goals according to the changed business environment and develop and implement an action plan to achieve these goals,” remarked Noot.
Ants Noot will commence working as the chief executive of Eesti Gaas as of today. Raul Kotov and Sergey Zagrebaylov will remain members of the board, coordinating respectively sales activities and infrastructure.
Ants Noot was born in 1969 and graduated from the specialty of economics and entrepreneurship at the Estonian Agricultural University in 1993. Noot has held managerial positions in banking in the period of 1993-1994, at the Ministry of Finance in 1994-1997, at AS Hansatee in 1997-1999 and, since 1999, served as a Chancellor at the Ministry of Agriculture and the current Ministry of Rural Affairs.
On February 23, a subsidiary of AS Infortar, OÜ Trilini Energy, entered into a contract with Fortum Heat and Gas OY for the purchase of 51% of the shares in AS Eesti Gaas. In the middle of March, the Competition Authority issued a permit for concentration, which allows the company to continue acquiring shares in Eesti Gaas. Trilini Energy has also submitted purchase offers to Gazprom and Itera Latvija, which hold 37% and 10% of the shares of Eesti Gaas, respectively.
AS Eesti Gaas is selling natural gas and electricity. The group includes AS EG Ehitus specialising in designing and construction of gas pipelines and structures and AS Gaasivõrgud, which is providing distribution services. The company owns five gas filling stations in Estonia.
Eesti Gaas employs 205 people. Based on last year’s unaudited data, the group’s turnover amounted to 130 million euros. In 2015, AS Eesti Gaas sold 386 million m3 of natural gas; the company has 1,570 corporate customers and 41,160 household customers. Eesti Gaas is also selling electricity to household and corporate customers; last year, the total of 9.7 GWh of electricity was sold.
