Russia\u2019s largest lender, Sberbank, has received proposals to sell its stake in Croatian food group Agrokor. Agrokor, with over 50,000 staff, was put under state-run administration last year.
\nIn October, a Croatian court approved a deal for Agrokor that includes a debt-for-equity swap, meaning that Agrokor\u2019s biggest single creditor, Sberbank, will soon become its largest shareholder with a 39.2 pct stake.
\nMaxim Poletayev, who is overseeing Agrokor\u2019s restructuring, said that Sberbank has already started to get proposals to buy out the bank\u2019s stake from different kinds of distressed funds spanning the United States and Canada to the UK.
\n\u201cAll will depend on the price, so far we are studying them,\u201d Poletayev said, adding that Sberbank is also in talks with a number of investors who may take part in refinancing Agrokor\u2019s super-senior debt.
\nThe company has EUR 1.1 bln in the super-senior loan, with Knighthead, VTB, Russia\u2019s second largest bank, and Italy\u2019s UniCredit among its debtors, he said. Poletayev said that the super-senior debt would bear an annual rate of 10 pct starting from January.
\n\u201cReplacing this loan with another one… is a task of the next couple of months. We are actively working on this and have received a couple of proposals,\u201d he said.
\nSberbank and VTB, having lent a total of EUR 1.1 bln and EUR 300 mln to Agrokor in the past, respectively, won\u2019t be taking part in any new loans for the company.
\nOverall claims against Agrokor, from creditors including local banks, bondholders and suppliers, amounted to some HRK 58 bln (USD 8.9 bln) before the restructure.
\nBondholders will own 25 pct of Agrokor after the debt to equity swap.
\nPoletayev said that Sberbank is in talks with both western and eastern funds and banks, including from China and Arab countries, who may take part in the refinancing process.
\nIn the meantime, as part of the restructuring plan, Sberbank wants Agrokor to focus on three areas: retail, food and agriculture, Poletayev said.
\nDavis Morris, an ex-executive with Britain\u2019s biggest food retailer Tesco, has joined Agrokor to oversee its retail business, Poletayev said.
\nFabris Perusko, a former McKinsey & Company consultant who was promoted to help with the restructuring from the board of Tisak, a chain of newsagents owned by Agrokor, is expected to be Agrokor\u2019s CEO, Poletayev said.
\nAgrokor\u2019s Mercator brand, which includes 985 stores in Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, will divest a number of non-core assets and sell real estate assets worth EUR 116 mln – a deal already approved by its board of directors, Poletayev said.
\nPoletayev also said that Agrokor\u2019s chain in Bosnia was not profitable enough and he believed the best option would be to redirect investments to Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia\u2019s largest lender, Sberbank, has received proposals to sell its stake in Croatian food group Agrokor. Agrokor, with over 50,000 staff, was put under state-run administration last year. In October, a Croatian court approved a deal for Agrokor that includes a debt-for-equity swap, meaning that Agrokor\u2019s biggest single creditor, Sberbank, will soon become its largest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-see-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PjAq-Rq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}