ZAGREB, September 5, 2019 – Agrokor’s suppliers will take legal action so that the settlement reached for the former conglomerate is honoured, the representative of big suppliers in the Temporary Creditor’s Council, Marica Vidaković, said on Wednesday, adding that no agreement had been reached with Fortenova Group on the payment of the border debt and that this was why suppliers were against refinancing a roll-up loan.
She was speaking to the press after the Council, with three votes from financial creditors’ representatives, gave its consent to former Agrokor emergency administrator Fabris Peruško to take out a loan to refinance Agrokor’s debts. Vidaković and the representative of small suppliers, Mato Brlošić, voted against.
Vidaković said suppliers had pushed for reaching a compromise on the pace of the payment of Agrokor’s border debt but that the Fortenova Group leaders were not willing to reach an agreement.
She said suppliers could not support new borrowing as a contract with new creditors contained a border debt payment clause, limiting it to 15 million over euro four years, that was contrary to the settlement.
Vidaković said suppliers believed this morning that a compromise would be reached, under which Fortenova would pay suppliers at least 50% of their claims each year, limiting the amount to 10 million euro per year.
Fortenova CEO Peruško said earlier today that the group had raised its offer for border debt payments this year to 9 million euro instead of 5 million euro, that they had done everything to reach an agreement, but that “some supplier representatives put their own interest before the interests of every other stakeholder in this process.”
Asked to comment, Vidaković said the “company’s future is actually jeopardised by an individual’s possible ambitions” and called Peruško’s statement “a potential threat.”
The border debt totals 70 million euro and was incurred over two months prior to an emergency administration entering Agrokor. It was for goods supplied whose payment was due on 10 April 2017. Under the settlement, the repayment is to be carried out over four years if the Konzum retail chain’s EBITDA exceeds 38.8 million euro. Given Konzum’s results last year, suppliers expected the payment of 17.5 million euro.
More Agrokor/Fortenova news can be found in the Business section.
