Cinema to be repossessed

A building that was at the centre of a fierce controversy last decade is about to be repossessed by SEB Bankas, the Vilniaus Diena newspaper has reported.

The privatization of the Lietuva cinema in central Vilnius provoked outrage from Vilnius's arts community when it was sold to investors who planned to convert it into a luxury flat development.

The Lietuva's owners, M2 Invest, now face bankruptcy and are blaming a protest group for having stalled the project which, they say, led them to lose 8 million litas, according to the newspaper report.

SEB Bankas, a subsidiary of Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB, a large Sweden-based banking group, is in the process of repossessing the property, the daily reported.