August 11 (SeeNews) - Hungarian entrepreneur Sandor Csanyi has expressed interest in the potential acquisition of Croatian food company Belje [ZSE:BLJE-R-A] from ailing concern Agrokor, Zagreb-based media reported.
Csanyi has held a meeting with Agrokor receiver Ante Ramljak to declare its interest in purchasing Belje, a member of the Croatian food-to-retail concern, Jutarnji List news daily reported earlier this week.
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Should Csanyi acquire Belje, he could become the person owning the largest area of agricultural land in the European Union, as the Hungarian entrepreneur already owns some 35,000 hectares in his home country, Jutarnji List said.
Belje owns 20,000 hectares of arable land and 20 cattle farms, data from the corporate website shows.
Csanyi is the largest shareholder and CEO of Hungarian financial services group OTP, which purchased the entire capital of Croatian lender Splitska Banka from France's Societe Generale for 425 million euro in May.
Since October 2000, Csanyi has been a board member of Hungarian energy group MOL, the largest shareholder of Croatian oil and gas company INA [ZSE:INA-R-A], with a 49.08% stake.
In May, MOL said it was ready to sell back its stake in INA to the Croatian government.
The Croatian government named Ramljak receiver of Agrokor on April 10 to lead the restructuring process in the indebted concern under a new law adopted by the parliament a week earlier.