Croatia's Atlantic Grupa Eyes 26% State-owned Stake in Podravka - Media

Atlantic Grupa CEO Emil Tedeschi, who has officially denied any interest in Podravka, has started to drum up support for his acquisition plan from local politicians and lenders and has even sounded out some international development banks with operations in Croatia, Poslovni (www.poslovni.hr) quoted unofficial sources as saying.

Podravka's two biggest shareholders as of October 16, 2009, were Fima AMI Ltd with 10.64% and HFP/HZMO (Croatian Privatisation Fund/Croatian Institute for Pension Insurance) with 10.62%, the latest data available on the food company's website indicated.

They are followed by HFP with 9.84%, UniCredit Bank Austria AG with 8.29%, mandatory pension fund PBZ Croatia osiguranje d.d. OMF with 6.46%, investment fund Kapitalni fond with 5.94%, mandatory pension fund Erste Plavi OMF with 5.78%, mandatory pension fund Raiffeisen OMF with 3.26% and closed-end investment fund Slavonski ZIF with 1.19%.

Atlantic Grupa shares were trading down 0.08% at 686.03 kuna by 1309 GMT on the Zagreb bourse on Thursday.

Podravka shares were trading up 1.7% at 304.5 kuna by 1312 GMT.

(1 euro=7.2954 Croatian kuna)