Croatian pension funds will not become new co-owners of Fortenova Group, despite the group's efforts to enable them to purchase the 42.5% stake held by the Russian bank Sberbank, Fortenova confirmed to the Croatian state news agency Hina on Friday.

The Vecernji List daily said on Friday that the agreement under which four private pension funds management companies were to buy Sberbank’s stake in Fortenova Group had definitely fallen through due to the explicit opposition of German Allianz, a co-owner of the largest of the four funds – AZ Fund.

“It’s true that the Croatian pension funds will not become new co-owners of Fortenova Group, even though the company’s Management Board has invested considerable efforts in the last two months to enable them to purchase the 42.5% stake held by Sberbank,” Fortenova said in answer to Hina’s query.

It said its team and legal advisers had devised a complex mechanism to enable this transaction in record time, in full compliance with the law and sanctions imposed on Russian companies.

“Although three of the four pension funds decided to invest, we regret that the Supervisory Board of the AZ Pension Fund, which as the largest mandatory pension fund in Croatia manages the pensions of most of us, did not recognise and seize what we believe to be a truly excellent opportunity for investment in the largest retail and food company in this part of Europe,” Fortenova said.

The Management Board of Fortenova Group had taken all the necessary steps to enable the pension funds to purchase Sberbank’s stake because this stake could now be purchased at a favourable price on account of the sanctions, it added.

The company said it wanted the pension funds in its ownership structure because in that way it would get an institutional investor that would bring further stability to regional food production and supply.

“However, because of the decision of one of the funds and the fact that each of them is subject to the investment ceiling set by law, all the pension funds missed the opportunity for purchase, even though Sberbank, too, did everything on its part for this transaction to be closed in the best interests of all the parties involved,” Fortenova said, noting that the ownership consolidation process would continue without the pension funds.