Croatian food-to-retail consortium Agrokor is to be renamed Fortenova Group, effective 1 April.
The decision was announced by the interim creditors' council of Agrokor and approved by the commercial court of Zagreb.
The new company will restart activities under a new management team. The nine-member board of directors will include three executive directors: Fabris Peruško has been appointed as CEO, Irena Weber will be Deputy CEO and COO, while a third is to be announced in due course.
Russia’s Sberbank is the largest shareholder of the new entity with a 39.2% stake, bondholders will hold 25%, Croatian banks 15.3% and Russia’s VTB will hold 7.5%.
New Structure
Of the 159 companies in the group, 45 are currently insolvent, so their assets will be transferred to mirror companies that continue to operate under the same name, but with the addition of the word ‘plus’.
For example, Croatian supermarket chain Konzum will continue to operate as Konzum Plus in the future, while water bottler Jamnica will become Jamnica Plus.
The shares in 32 solvent companies in Croatia will be transferred to the new company, while the assets and shares of 82 companies outside of Croatia will be transferred in accordance with the laws of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovenia.
Once all the assets and companies are amalgamated, the extraordinary administration procedure will be completed and Agrokor will be deleted from the Court Registry.
Regarding the biggest companies like Frikom, Kiseljak and Konzum BiH, their transfer to Fortenova Group could be completed in as little as four months.
The implementation of the settlement plan has enabled the rescue of a company that was at the brink of bankruptcy just two years ago, preserving more than 50,000 jobs.
However, Fortenova will still be burdened by €1 billion in debt through a so-called ‘roll-up loan’ and €340 million for certain creditors that will be repaid over eight years, after a two-year grace period.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
