At Friday's meeting of depositary receipt holders, Fortenova Group shareholders voted for all the decisions proposed, including on the consolidation of the group’s operations related to the transfer of Mercator shares, which the group expects to join it by the end of the month.

The Fortenova Group also received approval to extend the existing financial arrangement with HPS Partners and VTB Bank in the amount of not more than €390 million, to be used as a loan from the group to Mercator to refinance Mercator’s bank debt, the group said in a press release.

Sberbank’s stake in Fortenova rises to 44%

The shareholders also adopted the decision to swap Sberbank’s shares in Mercator for Fortenova Group shares, whereby the 18.53% of Mercator shares owned by Sberbank will be transferred to the group. With this swap, Sberbank’s share in Fortenova Group’s ownership rises to 44%.

The press release recalled that on 5 March Serbia’s Competition Protection Commission approved Fortenova Group’s intention to acquire control over the company Poslovni sistem Mercator d.d., Ljubljana on the Serbian market, whereby all the remaining key prerequisites for the soon to be effected transfer of Mercator shares to the group “have been met.”

The group’s CEO Fabris Perusko thanked the shareholders “who have recognized the importance of the proposed decisions for the future of Fortenova Group and with their votes provided support for the realisation of plans intended to strengthen our operations and affirm our position as the largest employer in South and Southeast Europe.”

“With these shareholder decisions and last week’s approval of the Serbian regulator there are no formal obstacles any more for Mercator to become part of Fortenova Group by the end of this month,” he said.

“In the previous period we have prepared the detailed steps that will now be operationalised and whereby we shall, as already announced on several occasions, proceed with consolidating the company on several levels – in intragroup ownership, Group crediting and last but not least in retail across the region. We will thus finally be able to start using all the synergic benefits and strengthen our positions in retail on all markets,” said Perusko.

“The transfer of Mercator is also the conclusion of all remaining obligations from the creditors’ Settlement Plan, marking, to my personal satisfaction, the successful closing of the Extraordinary Administration Procedure at Agrokor after exactly four years,” he added.