First payments to the most vulnerable suppliers will start.
Coordination of producers and suppliers announced on Friday that Agrokor’s temporary creditor council issued its first decision on Thursday evening to pay out 378 million kuna from an approved loan to the most vulnerable suppliers, reports 24sata.hr on April 14, 2017.
“The council unanimously decided to redirect the money to the most vulnerable suppliers,” announced the coordination.
Agrokor’s government-appointed commissioner Ante Ramljak reported on Thursday that the four Croatian banks had signed a credit agreement worth 80 million euros. The loan has the interest rate of 4.97 percent and has to be repaid in 15 months. We have given an order for these funds to be distributed within the group and then paid to all suppliers of Agrokor’s members. As of tomorrow, payment to all suppliers of Konzum, Tiska, Jamnica, Ledo and all companies within the group will begin, Ramljak told reporters. “I think we have achieved a major accomplishment. Also, all the wages to employees have been paid out, so we end this week with very positive and good results,” said Ramljak.
He announced that the first to get the money from that loan will be “several thousand small family farms and medium-sized businesses that have not been paid for months.”
Total debt of Agrokor to suppliers, according to the financial report for the first nine months of last year, amounted to approximately 16 billion kuna.
The Commercial Court in Zagreb issued on Thursday a decision on appointing members of the temporary creditor council, with representatives of several groups of creditors. The temporary creditor council includes a representative of Kraš, farmer Toni Raič, a representative of US company Knighthead Capital Management, Russian Sberbank, and Zagrebačka Banka.
By the decision of the court, the temporary creditor council has five members, as foreseen by the Law on procedure of extraordinary administration in companies of systemic importance for Croatia. The temporary creditor council has the same rights, powers and obligations as the permanent council, which will be established later.
The law foresees that the permanent council will have the maximum of nine members, who will be representatives of creditors. The number of members of the council and their distribution among creditor groups will be determined by the court at the proposal of the commissioner, and the number of members must be an odd number.
