ZAGREB, May 18, 2018 – The extraordinary administrator of the Agrokor conglomerate Fabris Peruško said on Friday he did not expect any external process to endanger the reaching of a settlement by July 10, the deadline defined by law, adding that the first draft of the settlement agreement would be finished today and published next week.
Asked by reporters in Opatija whether the settlement would be reached by a permanent or the temporary creditors council, Peruško said the latter since “there’s no time” to form a permanent council.
Talks are under way with all stakeholders, the extraordinary administration needs peace and stability to focus on what has to be done, and there is no need to extend the deadline for reaching a settlement, he said in a discussion on the impact of the settlement on the extraordinary emergency procedure in Agrokor, held as part of the Croatian Money Market conference.
He said the extraordinary administration would last until the settlement was implemented, in three to nine months, and that Agrokor’s new owners wanted it to wrap up its work as soon as possible.
Peruško said the extraordinary administration was in daily contact with the courts and that every step related to the text of the settlement was being agreed with the creditors, adding that it would be fatal for the economy if the settlement was not reached and that a broad consensus was required for reaching it.
Agrokor ran into trouble because of excessive debts and because it was not run properly, he said, adding that the rollup loan enabled it to survive. He recalled that the conglomerate’s debts stood at 7 billion euro, while its value was 2.5-3 billion euro.
He said claim write-offs would be substantial and that the wish was to protect those most sensitive, adding that everyone involved in the settlement was trying to get more and that he did not expect everyone to be extremely satisfied. The first to be paid will be those to which Agrokor owed money and if something remains, it will go to the shareholders, Peruško said, adding that the settlement would show the courts who had reported claims and who received how much.
His deputy Irena Weber said the settlement plan envisaged 55,000 activities that need to be done.
The vice president of the association of Agrokor’s minority shareholders Miroslav Jeličić Purko said the settlement should be reset and the process start again. He expects the settlement to result in lawsuits.
Asked if he would ask the advisors in Agrokor to return their fees, Peruško said the creditors had made it clear that they were aware of advisors’ expenses and that the advisors were necessary to complete the process. The creditors have no issue with the expenses created during the process, he added. He said the emergency administration had agreed with a majority of the creditors to make advisors’ expenses public at the end of the process so as to show the public that the main problems now were to deal with the claims that were being contested and to finalise the text of the settlement.
Peruško said advisors’ expenses were reduced after April 10. Asked how much he was making, he said his salary was 71,000 kuna a month, that it was defined by law and that he would receive it until the end of the extraordinary administration procedure.
Advisors’ expenses will total about one percent of Agrokor’s total debt, which is far below such expenses in similar processes, he said. Asked if he had asked them to cut their expenses, he said negotiations were held with all advisors and that the expenses were cut by 10 to 30%, depending on the company.
