April 13 (SeeNews) - Croatia's troubled concern Agrokor and five of the country’s banks have agreed on an 80 million euro ($85.2 million) loan deal, which should be signed on Thursday, the receiver of the company said.
The proceeds of the loan will be used entirely to service debts to suppliers, Ante Ramljak said at a news conference late on Wednesday aired live by public broadcaster HRT.
The loan has a repayment period of 15 months and carries an interest rate below 9.5%.
Agrokor was hoping to secure a 150 million euro loan deal with its six largest creditors, including Russia’s Sberbank, as both Ramljak and the country’s prime minister Andrej Plenkovic said earlier.
However, Sberbank pulled out in the last minute as Agrokor failed to meet its requests, according to local media reports. Croatian news agency Hina reported on Wednesday that Sberbank has demanded senior status for the 100 million euro stabilisation loan it gave Agrokor earlier this year.
Ramljak told the media that Agrokor did not have enough time to negotiate Sberbank’s demands and that further talks would be held in the next 30 days, when the concern is due to resume dialogue on further financing.
The receiver also said that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will conduct an audit on Agrokor’s finances, due to be completed in the next six months.
On Monday, the government named Ramljak as receiver of Agrokor to lead the restructuring process in Croatia's largest private concern under a new law adopted by the parliament last Thursday and activated a day later. The law, commonly known as 'Lex Agrokor', was drafted by the government in response to financial troubles that emerged recently at the food and retail group.
The law, apart from enabling the government to appoint temporary management to lead a restructuring process in an ailing company, states that the first creditor that offers a loan to the company gets priority in the collection of receivables in case of a potential bankruptcy.
($=0.939128 euro)
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