ZAGREB, January 29, 2019 – The President of the Brodosplit shipyard Management Board, Tomislav Debeljak, said on Monday that following due diligence, his DIV company and its partners had submitted a bid for the restructure of the Uljanik Group and underlined that his company had references in the form of equity of 1.7 billion kuna and a debt of 296 million kuna.
“We conducted due diligence in Uljanik and submitted a bid for the restructuring programme,” Debeljak told reporters at the Brodosplit dock where the start of construction of a polar cruise ship was launched, for the Quark Expeditions company which is part of the Travelopia Group.
Debeljak told reporters that he could not disclose the financial details of the bid however he underlined that DIV had a partnership with the Italian Fincantieri Group and “large and respectable banks who have sent letters of intent.”
“As far as we are concerned as a company, the DIV Group has an equity of 1.7 billion kuna and a debt of just 296 million kuna. That means that our debt is far less than that of some large, quality companies and even some insurance companies. We have a truly good financial position,” he said.
He added that the Brodosplit dock has shown that shipbuilding in Croatia can be positive and of good quality. He added that Brodosplit is currently preparing a study that will show what positive shipbuilding means and what negative shipbuilding is, adding that for the past three years, the Split-based dock has had positive business results.
“We have shown that we have references in the examples of the defunct Tvik company in Knin, the defunct Švrljiga factory in Serbia that we bought and, let’s say the once defunct Brodosplit whose equity was deeply in the red and have shown what we can and intend to do in Uljanik or anywhere else in some other shipyard in Europe. We have the will, know-how, desire and management capacities to expand,” Debeljak concluded.
In other Uljanik related news, deputy leader of the Adriatic Union, Boris Cerovac, said on Monday that news that the Commercial Court had received an application from the FINA financial agency requesting bankruptcy proceedings against the Uljanik shipyard joint-stock company was to be expected.
FINA notes that as of 21 January the Uljanik shipyard has unsettled payments that are more than 120 days overdue and amount to a total of 75.8 million kuna.
“That was absolutely to be expected because we knew that January 21 was the 120th day that the company’s accounts were blocked,” Cerovac told HINA. He expects the pre-bankruptcy trustee to determine the true situation and that it isn’t necessary to launch bankruptcy proceedings if the restructuring programme proposed by a new strategic partner will “hold water.”
FINA notes that Uljanik has 1,400 employees and about twenty accounts and term deposits in five commercial banks and that FINA has other information concerning the company’s assets. The news of the bankruptcy proceedings comes after Uljanik’s management board reported that a client from Luxembourg, CLdN, had unilaterally withdrawn from a contract for the construction of a ship.
Prior to that Uljanik has unilaterally cancelled a contract for another client and the latest cancellation is just another in this crisis situation in Uljanik.
Cerovac added that the union doesn’t have any official information concerning a potential strategic partner and who has submitted bids for the company.
More news on the Uljanik shipyard can be found in the Business section.
