April 29 (SeeNews) - Croatia's financial regulator said on Wednesday it has approved the prospectus of local craft beer maker The Garden Brewery for a 40.4 million kuna ($5.8 million/5.3 million euro) initial public offering (IPO) on the Zagreb Stock Exchange.
Last month, the company sought the green light for its intention to list 80,807 regular shares of 500 kuna in par value each on the ZSE, the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency, Hanfa, said in a statement.
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Even though The Garden Brewery is active in a sector currently exposed to high risk in the continuing coronavirus crisis, the company has stressed it is aware of the current circumstances and plans to focus on online sales in the coming period, Hanfa said.
The Garden Brewery is a holding company that comprises The Bird d.o.o. which is active in craft beer brewing and wholesale and runs the Taproom Zitnjak retail chain; Lula d.o.o. which is active in retail sales and runs Barovi - Tisno Resort brand; and Yellow Submarine d.o.o. whose business is food and drinks preparation and serving, Hanfa said.
The largest single shareholder of The Garden Brewery is local mandatory pension fund AZ B category with a 30.82% stake, followed by local individual Milan Badelj with 29.72%, and voluntary pension fund AZ Profit with 9.9%.
In October, Croatia's AZ pension funds - one of the largest institutional investors in the country, injected 20 million kuna into the capital of The Garden Brewery, acquiring a 49.5% ownership stake and saying they are thus entering the segment of small and medium-sized companies.
AZ pension funds are managed by Allianz ZB, a company owned by Allianz Zagreb and Croatia's Zagrebacka Banka.
The head of The Garden Brewery's supervisory board, Tomislav Alpeza, said in October that the company plans to use the proceeds from the capital increase to expand its production capacities in order to strengthen its position on existing markets and to conquer new ones.
The Zagreb-based brewery produces 7,000 hectolitres of beer per year and sells 30% of its output abroad, to the markets of the UK, Germany, Denmark and Australia, among others.
(1 euro = 7.56391 kuna)