September 27 (SeeNews) - Polish do-it-yourself retailer Merkury Market is taking over 16 Emmezeta furniture and household appliance stores in Croatia and Serbia for more then 120 mln euro ($ 140 million) from US real estate investment company LCN Capital Partners, according to Croatian media reports.
"The closing of the transaction is under way," local magazine Lider reported at the end of last week.
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“We are not going to comment on this information,” Slobodan Skolnik, CEO of Emmezeta Balkans, told SeeNews in an e-mailed statement on Monday. Representatives of Merkury Market and LCN Capital Partners were unavailable to comment.
Merkury Market runs more then 60 stores for construction materials and furniture in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In Croatia, Emmezeta operates stores in Zagreb, Osijek, Split, Rijeka, Slavonski Brod, Varazdin, Pula, Dubrovnik and Zadar. In Serbia, it has stores in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis and Cacak.
In both southeast European countries it also runs online stores.
The Emmezeta-branded stores in Croatia are under the management of Croatia-registered company Fliba d.o.o., whose CEO Skolnik is and management board member and CFO is Andrzej Pawel Sitarz. Skolnik is also CEO of the Serbian company, Emmezeta Srbija d.o.o., whose management board member and CFO is also Sitarz.
According to Croatia's court register, Merkury Market set up in February a services company in the Adriatic country, LCN EMZ Adria d.o.o., with a registered capital of 50.69 million kuna ($7.9 million/6.8 million euro). Sitarz is one of its three managers.
(1 euro = 7.504 Croatian kuna)