ZAGREB, March 8, 2019 – Economy Minister Darko Horvat said on Friday that the financial situation at the Pula-based Uljanik shipbuilding group should be “reduced to zero” before restructuring began in cooperation with the strategic partner.
“The debt is huge and we should not shrink from it,” Horvat told reporters on the margins of a conference on the future of family businesses, organised by Lider business weekly.
He said that the European Commission was very clear in its guidelines on who should redress the consequences of bad decisions made in the past, adding that those should be “shareholders and creditors.”
“Before including Mr Debeljak as the strategic partner in the restructuring process and before starting the restructuring process itself, we need to reduce the financial situation in the whole Uljanik Group to zero. Today and tomorrow we will try to find a source of financing to make that possible,” Horvat said.
He said that Tomislav Debeljak had found during the due diligence process that there was an equity deficit of 1.1 billion euro. He added that Debeljak had told him again on Thursday that he was not willing to cover the debts from the past.
More news on the Uljanik shipyard can be found in the Business section.
