Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic commented on Wednesday on the vote in which Agrokor’s creditors passed the debt-for-equity settlement deal in the indebted food and retail group.
“Looking back on the last 15 months, all of us, the government and everyone, can be very satisfied. We now wait for the court’s confirmation and the implementation of the settlement deal,” Plenkovic said.
Creditors with claims totalling 31.86 billion kuna (€4.3 billion) were present at the court hearing which took place today in Zagreb Commercial Court, and those with 80.2 percent total claims voted in favour of the deal.
The Prime Minister congratulated former Economy Minister Martina Dalic on her role in the process.
Martina Dalic was Economy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister at the time when the crisis in Agrokor began in 2017. She helped draft a bill on state-appointed emergency management for systematically important companies, dubbed in the media Lex Agrokor, which was passed in April 2017.
Lex Agrokor was heavily criticised in Croatia by experts who claimed it was a violation of the principles of the free market and equal treatment of all companies, enshrined in the Constitution.
Dalic resigned in May over the so-called Hotmail affair, when e-mails of experts who had drafted the bill without public knowledge were leaked and published by Index.hr website.
“What follows now is the confirmation and implementation phase, which will last at least half a year. The new owners will create a new corporate management structure. It is important to us that everyone shows faith in the company so that it can be profitable and beneficial to the entire Croatian economy,” Plenkovic said.
Under the debt-for-equity settlement deal, the biggest shareholder in the new structure will be Sberbank, with 39.2 percent shares in the new company. The Russian bank will be followed by bond holders with 25 percent, another Russian bank, VTB, with 7.5 percent, and Zagrebacka Bank with 2.3 percent shares.
Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.
