The financials problems of troubled Croatian giant Agrokor are impacting on Serbia, where Russia’s Sberbank is trying to collect some of the debts it is owed by taking over some Agrokor companies there.
Russian bank Sberbank has initiated proceedings before the Commercial Court in Belgrade, Serbia, to acquire two companies owned by the troubled Croatian retail giant Agrokor.
Sberbank launched the court proceedings on the basis of loans it gave to two companies, Jamnica and Konzum, which are owned by Agrokor – and which in turn own Mivela and IDEA in Serbia.
The Serbian Business Registry said court decisions permitting the sale of 100 per cent of Agrokor’s share in Mivela become valid in July.
The case is the same with IDEA, which managed Agrokor’s retail network until 2013, and is owned by the Agrokor company Konzum.
Sberbank allegedly seeks the return of 1.1 billion euros in loans from Agrokor, which in Serbia, besides Mivela and IDEA, owns Dijamant, Frikom, Kikinda Mills, Mercator S, and Nova Sloga.
Serbian economic journalist Misa Brkic said he expected Sberbank either to rent out the acquired Agrokor companies to a Serbian business, or sell them.
He said the bank’s goal would be “to sell it to the one who offers more money”. Brkic told BIRN that he expected considerable interest on the part of Serbian businessmen in the firms.
The owner of the Serbian company Swisslion, Rodoljub Drakulic, said on April 27 that he wanted to take over Agrokor’s companies in Serbia.
If he succeeded, “By the end of the year, I would complete the financial consolidation of the Agrokor system in Serbia [and] all its loans will be repaid in the next two years,” Draskovic told the Nedeljnik weekly.
Brkic said Russia had a strategic interest in Agrokor’s retail network in Serbia, which Mercator S manages there.
“Agrokor has retail stores in Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia, so the one who owns the shelves in these countries has great power,” he explained.
Meanwhile, through the courts, Sherbank has forbidden Agrokor from disposing of its shares in its remaining Serbian companies – which Serbian media have interpreted as a Russian move to ensure Agrokor does not sell off its companies in Serbia in order to pay off its debts.
According to recent Croatian media reports, in August Sherbank launched arbitration proceedings in London over three unpaid loans to Agrokor, worth just over a billion euros.
Croatian media reported on August 3 that Sberbank had filed a criminal complaint against Agrokor, but also against its owner, Croatian businessman Ivica Todoric, accusing them of giving them false information on the company’s situation before the last loan was agreed in February.
Although he is still the nominal owner of Agrokor, Todoric handed the hugelty indebted company over to state extraordinary management in April, under a previously adopted law, on Procedures for Extraordinary Management in Companies of Systematic Significance.
The potential downfall of Agrokor would cause economic and social turbulence across the region.
The concern employs 40,000 people in Croatia and an additional 20,000 in Slovenia, Bosnia and Serbia, while its 2015 income amounted to around 6.5 billion euros – almost 16 percent of Croatia’s total GDP.
Russian Sberbank was not available for immediate comment.
