ZAGREB, February 9, 2018 – The association of minority shareholders in the ailing Agrokor food conglomerate on Friday presented a draft settlement plan for Agrokor d.d. which, among other things, recommends the restructuring of only those companies with negative capital, that is, the conglomerate’s core businesses, Agrokor d.d. and the Konzum supermarket chain.
“We recommend the financial restructuring of the company’s core – Agrokor d.d. and the Konzum supermarket chain. Those assets are worth more than is being claimed and the audited financial statements that were prepared based on the nominal value cannot be a fair estimate of the companies’ value that will be used in the settlement plan,” Mihaela Grubišić Šeba told a press conference on behalf of minority shareholders. “We claim that with our settlement plan no-one will lose out,” she added.
Grubišić Šeba went on to say that only the core business and Konzum should be restructured because most of the conglomerate’s debt relate to those companies – Agokor owes 3.6 billion euro and Konzum 700 million euro.
According to the association’s settlement plan, unsecured creditors would transform 100% of their claims, without writing anything off, into ownership shares and would become owners of the parent company. Dependent companies would write off their claims against Agrokor d.d. and the only creditors that would remain would be those in the roll-up deal and those with separate satisfaction rights. The equity after conversion would amount to 3 billion euro, Grubišić Šeba told the press conference.
The profit-earning capacity of shares has not been taken into consideration, meaning that the value of assets has been reduced, resulting in negative capital for Agrokor, she said and added that individual companies are earning more than has been presented in the value of these companies.
With reference to the roll-up loans, she said that Agrokor’s management didn’t know what they were signing. “The roll-up agreement consists of 200 pages of expert English,” she said.
The association’s president, Mićo Jurjević, underscored that their settlement plan is a “good, fair and legal.”
His deputy, Miroslav Jeličić-Purko, added that it was fair that financiers should restructure Agrokor and suppliers restructure Konzum.
Jeličić-Purko added that according to the proposed settlement plant, only those companies with negative capital would be restructured whereas (Agrokor emergency administrator Ante) Ramljak’s restructuring plan for the core business includes healthy and liquid companies. “The restructuring that foreign consultants are being paid for hasn’t occurred and yet their wages are 8,000 kuna an hour,” he said.
The association believes that the Law on Emergency Administration in Systemically Important Companies was necessary, however, its authors had singled out certain aspects like roll-up loans and property transfers, resulting in property being handed over to foreigners for very little money.
Asked whether the association had presented its plan to suppliers, Jelicic-Purko said that some contact had been made, however, he is of the opinion that suppliers’ position is that “if small shareholders get what they want, what will remain for us?”
