Corporate bonds have reappeared and domestic groups are becoming more acquisitive. But Serbia’s deals still depend on bank balance sheets, international institutions and a small number of strategic buyers.
Credit is abundant, but the menu is short
A Serbian chief financial officer can choose among several strong banks, yet still have few alternatives to a bank. Lenders hold more than 90 per cent of financial-sector assets, while corporate claims were equivalent to about 18.2 per cent of GDP in the first quarter of 2026. Corporate loans increased by RSD27bn during the quarter. Working capital remained the largest purpose, ahead of investment finance — a sign of active demand, but also of how much routine liquidity still sits on bank balance sheets.
The principal lenders are the same institutions that dominate the wider market: Banca Intesa, OTP, Raiffeisen, UniCredit, AIK, NLB Komercijalna, Poštanska štedionica and Erste. Large borrowers can add EBRD, EIB or IFC money, syndicated loans and parent-company funding. Smaller and mid-sized companies tend to rely on bilateral facilities, owner equity, supplier credit and retained earnings. Venture capital and private equity matter in selected sectors, but not at system scale.
International institutions often make the less familiar structures possible. The EBRD’s €60mn package for HTEC supports acquisitions; its €40mn sustainability-linked loan to MK Group ties funding to environmental and social targets. Guarantees and risk-sharing with local banks can extend tenors or reach borrowers that would otherwise remain below a commercial credit threshold. This is useful market-building, but it also shows what the local system does not yet provide unaided.
Serbia has enough liquidity to finance companies. It does not yet have enough instruments to finance every stage of a company’s life.
The bond market has restarted from almost zero
Elixir Group’s RSD4.10bn green corporate-bond offering in April 2025 was the first primary corporate issue on the Belgrade exchange in more than a decade. Fashion Company followed in March 2026 with a fully subscribed €72mn, seven-year bond priced at three-month BELIBOR plus 1 percentage point. A World Bank-supported pipeline contained another nine potential issuers by mid-2026. The numbers are modest beside bank lending, but the change in behaviour is important.
A functioning bond market can give mature businesses longer tenors, diversify refinancing and establish a public price for credit. It can also create investable assets for insurers and pension funds that are heavily exposed to government paper. The obstacles are familiar: disclosure, ratings, issuance cost, a thin secondary market and investor preference for the sovereign. A few privately placed or development-supported deals do not yet constitute a self-sustaining market.
Equity finance is thinner still. The Belgrade Stock Exchange is not a regular exit route for owner-managed companies, and many founders treat public disclosure as a cost rather than access to capital. Serbia’s capital-market reforms are therefore less about competing immediately with banks than creating a credible second channel for the best-governed companies.
Large M&A is real — and episodic
Telecoms produced the clearest recent transaction. PPF agreed to buy SBB Serbia for €825mn from United Group, and SBB was merged into Yettel Serbia on 1 April 2026. Related Serbian media and broadcasting assets were sold separately. The transaction combined infrastructure, customers and cross-selling potential — precisely the economics that drive consolidation in a saturated communications market.
Other headline deals demonstrate why announced value is not the same as completed value. MOL’s proposed purchase of the Russian shareholders’ 56.2 per cent stake in NIS remained entangled with US sanctions and approvals in August 2026. Raiffeisen Bank International’s offer for Addiko attracted a majority of acceptances but still had conditions to satisfy. In strategic sectors, geopolitics and regulatory consent can be more important than financing.
Private equity and strategic buyers remain active in services and consumer sectors. The sale of MediGroup to Finland’s Mehiläinen is a healthcare platform deal; HTEC is funded to consolidate technology capabilities. CVC, MidEuropa, BC Partners and regional funds have helped establish private-equity benchmarks, while domestic groups such as Nelt, MK Group, Telekom Srbija and other regional champions increasingly look outward. Serbia is becoming a source of buyers as well as targets.
The next market is the mid-cap succession problem
Public deal data are incomplete and many Serbian transactions disclose no price, so aggregate league tables imply more certainty than the market provides. The more useful trend is qualitative. Founder-owned businesses built after the 1990s are approaching succession decisions; labour shortages and compliance costs favour scale; and regional expansion is often cheaper through acquisition than greenfield entry.
That puts distribution, food processing, logistics, private healthcare, software, environmental services and specialist manufacturing in the buy-and-build zone. Domestic banks can fund senior debt; development lenders can share risk; regional private equity can supply governance and equity; strategic groups can pay for synergies. The missing layer is deeper mezzanine, private credit and public equity for companies too complex for a simple loan but too small for a global fund.
Serbia’s corporate-finance market is thus moving in two speeds. Headline M&A can be large and international, while the everyday market remains bilateral and bank-led. If the Elixir and Fashion Company bonds become a repeatable issuance programme, and if domestic consolidators recycle exits into new deals, the gap will narrow. Until then, the most powerful person in a Serbian transaction is still likely to be the lender whose credit committee approves it.
