ZAGREB, May 25, 2018 – The Kraš confectionery company and ailing Agrokor food and retail conglomerate on Friday refuted claims that in the process of categorisation of claims by Agrokor’s emergency administrator, Kraš’s procurator Marica Vidaković had managed to negotiate a more favourable status for Kraš and some other companies.
The Index web news portal on Friday released new e-mails in the Hotmail scandal, which concerns emails between former economy minister Martina Dalić and consultants involved in the drafting of the law on emergency administration in systemic companies (Lex Agrokor).
In an article accompanying the latest e-mails, Index notes that Kraš’s procurator and representative of suppliers on the Temporary Creditors’ Council Marica Vidaković “pressed for the interests of Kraš and some other companies” regarding promissory notes and with a “combination of pleas and threats managed to obtain certain concessions from Agrokor’s emergency administration.”
“They transferred their old claims to Agrokor’s border debt and in that way managed to avoid write-offs,” the Index.hr web site reported and added that some suppliers had been treated better than others.
Agrokor’s old debts are those that matured before 10 April 2017 and their payment was to be decided by the creditor’s council and they were paid out of a new loan given to Agrokor, whereas the border debt was the one that was invoiced prior to April 10 but matured after that date.
“The insinuations published today of the emergency administration’s alleged favouring of certain suppliers and alleged conversion of old claims into the border debt, are not founded on any truth. Also, it is absolutely not true that there were any privileged suppliers who managed to transfer the encumbrance of promissory notes to Agrokor,” Kraš said in a press release.
Kraš notes that the promissory notes concerned were issued as a guarantee of payment for supplied goods, which was common business practice between Agrokor’s retailer Konzum and its numerous suppliers.
Kraš further notes that not one supplier was paid on the basis of those promissory notes and that they were issued as a guarantee of payment for supplied goods, and that it is therefore untrue that “Agrokor founder Ivica Todorić paid suppliers with promissory notes and that suppliers forced the emergency administration to take back those promissory notes.”
Kraš further recalls that Vidaković has on several occasions officially and publicly asked the emergency administration to publish all the tables of payments to suppliers so that the process is completely transparent and all interested parties can have an insight into which suppliers have been paid and how much.
The speculations published today about the alleged favouring of certain suppliers by the emergency administration and the alleged conversion of old claims into the so-called border debt are untrue, Agrokor said. Once the tables are published, it will be absolutely clear that these claims are unfounded, Agrokor said in a press release.
