ZAGREB, March 6, 2019 – Slovenia’s Mercator retail chain is in a better shape today than in the period before Agrokor bought it, the conglomerate emergency administrator, Fabris Peruško told Slovenia’s STA news agency, and expresses hope that the company will be successfully integrated in the new Agrokor, or as it will be named, Fortenova as of April 1.
“When we bought Mercator, it was not a healthy company and Agrokor gave it an important injection to survive,” Peruško said and added that the problem in operations after the merger emerged later.
“The problem was that Mercator and Agrokor didn’t jointly create a platform on which they would be healthy partners for their suppliers, however, Fortenova will resolve some essential obstacles in business operations and quality partnerships with suppliers will be made, which is a great opportunity for cooperation to continue,” Peruško told STA.
He added that he was cooperating well with Slovenia’s Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek and commented on frequent speculation in Slovenia’s media according to which Slovenian banks, as Mercator’s creditors, might withdraw its support from Mercator entering the Fortenova system due to alleged danger that money could be siphoned from the Slovenian retail chain, which was one of the reasons why the Slovenian government adopted a law dubbed Lex Mercator, and appointed its own emergency administrator in Mercator’s management board.
The current situation is such that Agrokor’s receivables from Mercator are in fact higher than its claims towards the conglomerate and it is not true that Agrokor is siphoning money from Mercator, Peruško said and added that the foundation for future cooperation between Mercator and the core company are “healthy synergic relations,” and not mutual exhaustion.
The largest Croatian food and retail chain took over Mercator in 2014.
More news about Agrokor can be found in the Business section.
