OREANDA-NEWS. On 8 February 2011, the annual general meeting of AS Tallink Grupp approved the terms of employee share option program that allowed issuing options for up to 15 million shares until 31 August 2013. In accordance with the program the Group issued options during the 2011 and 2012 financial years. At 31 December 2015, the Group had outstanding 7,276,903 share options. Each option gives the right to purchase one share in AS Tallink Grupp. In the case the new shares are issued the exercise price is EUR 0.858 and in case the shares are purchased from the market the exercise price is the average of the acquisition cost. Pursuant to the terms of the option program, the Supervisory Board of AS Tallink Grupp has the right to decide the method of fulfilment of the options. In accordance with the terms and conditions of the options the options are exercisable between 21 December 2015 and 21 June 2016.

Considering that the forthcoming annual general meeting of shareholders of AS Tallink Grupp to be held on 14 June 2016 is expected to adopt a resolution to decrease the share capital of AS Tallink Grupp, the Management Board considers fulfilling of the option agreements by issuing new shares or purchasing them from the market during the long-term process of reduction of share capital impractical due to legal and economic considerations.

Therefore, the Supervisory Board of AS Tallink Grupp has decided to not issue new shares or purchase them from the market for the fulfilment of the option agreements. The Supervisory Board has authorized the Management Board to pay option holders compensation of 0.15 Euros for each share option in cash for the performance of option agreements.