The court hearing at which creditors of the indebted retail and food group Agrokor are voting on a debt-of-equity settlement plan began at 11 am on Wednesday in Zagreb.

At the start of the hearing, Zagreb Commercial Court judge Nevenka Siladi Rstic told them they were merely voting on the settlement plan, not discussing it.

Everyone in attendance has the right to vote, including creditors whose claims have been challenged either by the state-appointed emergency administrator or other creditors.

With more than 3,000 creditors in attendance in what is the largest court hearting in Croatia’s history, their registration before the hearing took three hours.

Of the 3,069 creditors with outstanding claims to vote with at the hearing, 2,785 have outstanding claims higher than 1,000 kuna (€135). Creditors with claims totalling to 23.35 billion kuna (€3.1 billion) are attending the hearing, which is nearly 95 percent of all oustanding claims.

The total amount of challenged claims, for which there is a possibility that they their holders would be granted voting rights anyway, is around 12.1 billion kuna (€1.6 billion). In order for the settlement to pass, it has to be approved by creditors with claims ranging from 16.7 to 24.6 billion kuna (€2.2-3.3 billion).

Voting is taking place in two stages, the first on granting voting rights to creditors with challenged claims, and the second on the settlement itself. Due to the large number of creditors allowed to vote, the voting itself will take place using a mobile app developed by one of Agrokor’s companies.

(€1 = 7.38 kuna)

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