The final figure should be known soon.
Today is the last day for claims to be filed by creditors of Agrokor and its 77 affiliated companies. Once the registration process has been completed, a 60-day period will begin in which the extraordinary management has to publish data on the basis of which it will be clear to whom Agrokor is in debt and what is the total amount of debt, reports tportal.hr on September 11, 2017.
A month after Ante Ramljak took office as a state-appointed commissioner of Agrokor, the group announced that it owed about 40.4 billion kunas. But, as Ramljak warned at the time, that is not the whole debt because the figure does not cover Mercator, a major retail chain from Slovenia. Also, the data were not audited at the time.
Four months later, the claims application process is finally over, and it is expected that Agrokor’s debt, as Ramljak admitted shortly after he was appointed, could grow to as much as 50 billion kunas, or ten billion kunas more than it was initially announced in May.
Although Ramljak has a deadline of 60 days for publication of the debt data, Agrokor believes that the debt tables will be published earlier – by mid-October.
According to the April’s report, Agrokor has a largest debt towards financial creditors – banks and leasing companies – around 24.5 billion kunas, while liabilities to vendors amounted to 6.2 billion kunas. Debts on the basis of bills of exchange amounted to 7.36 billion kunas.
After the debt tables are published, as well as audited business reports of Agrokor’s companies, Ramljak and his team will start drafting a settlement proposal that should bring an end to the “Lex Agrokor” and lead to the resolution of the crisis in Croatia’s largest privately-owned business group.
The situation in Agrokor is also closely monitored by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which still holds a two percent stake in the group, but does not participate in the management.
Pierre Heilbronn from EBRD said on Monday that they were monitoring the consequences of Agrokor’s problems in the Western Balkans region and suggested that there was a possibility of providing financial support to companies which would face problems due to the group’s low liquidity.
Asked how activities on the rescue of Agrokor would influence the food processing industry in the region, given that the EBRD gave Podravka a loan last year, he suggested that there was a possibility of financial support for companies that would face problems due to their cooperation with Agrokor.
“This is a serious question, and we are also monitoring the consequences that Agrokor will cause in the region. We are especially focusing on whether we should provide support to branch offices in the states involved in this crisis,” said Heilbronn.
Translated from tportal.hr.
