The money will be used to pay amounts due to suppliers and the state.
In the last two weeks, Agrokor has agreed with Russian Sberbank loans which will provide to the company additional 300 million euros, which reportedly should be enough to pay amounts due to suppliers. Sources say that Agrokor will also use that money to close its debts to the state by the end of the week as well. Although there was speculation that the debt to the state had increased to six billion kuna, which is significantly more than 300 million euros, Finance Minister Zdravko Marić denied this on Thursday, reports Večernji List on March 17, 2017.
This has affected the stock market as well, with the decline of shares of companies within the Agrokor group slowing down. Sources close to the company say there is no room for panic and that in the coming days a restructuring plan for the company will be agreed, which will also include changes in the ownership structure. The Todorić family will remain partial owners, but it is not known what their future share in ownership will be. This suggests that the current majority owner Ivica Todorić is prepared to give up part of Agrokor to save the company.
There are also reports that a new supervisory board will be named, which will include an expert on finances who will lead financial restructuring. This would mean a significant softening of the position heard among the creditors earlier this week, when they demanded from Todorić to completely withdraw from the management of the company.
Agrokor is still paying interest related to bonds and loans on time, but the principal is also going to have to be repaid soon, so the new tranche of money has not solved the long-term problem. One possible solution would be restructuring and extension of the maturity of the loans, which at this time amount to 2.5 billion euros in the period of the next five years.
Agrokor currently has about 1.3 billion euros in loans from Russian banks Sberbank and VTB. There is speculation about Sberbank entering into ownership of some of the companies from the group, but the bank has unofficially and repeatedly claimed that it is not interest in Todorić’s companies, but only want debts to be repaid and interest paid on time. In fact, they believe that taking over the ownership would bring reputational risk due to current political relations.
Despite rumours circulating on Wednesday that some vendors had stopped shipping their products to Konzum, which is Croatia’s largest retail chain and part of the Agrokor group, the Atlantic Group, one of Croatia’s largest distributors, once again denied these speculations. This was also confirmed by Dukat and Podravka, major food producers.
