Deputy chairman the executive board of Russia's Sberbank, Maxim Poletaev, met on Tuesday in Zagreb with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Sberbank is the largest single creditor of the indebted food and retail group Agrokor, with a €1.1 billion claim, out of the company’s total debt of around €7.8 billion.

“We asked for this meeting in order to inform Mr Plenkovic about our position in the settlement process. We are close to achieving a compromise, close to getting a deal. I think the meeting with Plenkovic was constructive, and I think we had an understanding,” Poletaev told reporters after the meeting.

The privately-owned company had been taken over by state administration in April 2017, tasked with overseeing its orderly restructuring to ensure its survival. Agrokor is one of the largest company in the country, employing 60,000 workers across the region before its crisis started in early 2017.

A debt-for-equity settlement with company’s creditors is seen as a key step in the administration process, and the legally mandated deadline to agree on the plan is July 10.

Poletaev also added that there was a “dramatic change in the situation” around the settlement in the past few months, and said that Sberbank had long-term plans to keep its stake in the restructured Agrokor.

Sberbank had initially opposed the state-appoint management’s settlement plan, before dropping a series of lawsuits against the company and returning to the negotiating table in March.

Asked if he expected the agreement to be reached by the end of this week, Poletaev said “not by the end of the week, but by the end of this month.”

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.