Tallink’s supervisory board has decided to start an exploratory process looking into different strategic options for the company. Citigroup Global Markets has been appointed as the financial advisor of this process, Tallink told the Tallinn stock exchange.

All options considered would have to support Tallink’s long-term strategy and could involve new core investors. This could potentially result in some of the current shareholders selling their stake, either by way of a voluntary or mandatory buy-out offer, Tallink said.

The company also announced that there would be no further announcements relating to this process unless either required or appropriate, and that it couldn’t confirm that the result would eventually involve any transactions at all.

According to Tallink’s announcement to the stock exchange, three companies, Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership (Employee) II L.P., Baltic Cruises Holding L.P., and Baltic Cruises Investment L.P. agreed to only divest their stakes in Tallink Grupp in the same transaction, at the same time, and on the same economic terms, including the share price. The agreement is terminated as soon as none of the companies hold shares in Tallink Grupp anymore.

Baltic Cruises Holding owns a 16.1 percent stake in Tallink, and Baltic Cruises Investment another 5.51 percent. Together the three companies own 23.68 percent or 158.6 million shares.

The price per Tallink share on Thursday closed at €0.946, which would make the price of the share package of the three companies €150 million.

Baltic Cruises acquired its stake in Tallink in 2012. In December of the same year, Tallink announced that Baltic Cruises was a subsidiary of CVCI Growth Fund II, a fund advised by Citi Venture Capital International Advisors.