January 25 (SeeNews) - Russia's Sberbank confirmed for SeeNews on Friday it plans to sell its stake in Croatia's ailing food-to-retail concern Agrokor as it is a non-core business.
"We have always said that Agrokor is a non-core business that we do not intend to own long-term, and that our sole desire is to sell this business. It is simply a question of time, price and the partner," a Sberbank press officer told SeeNews in an email.
"I think we will carry out refinancing in March, when we receive our share in the new Agrokor," the press officer said, adding that she cannot rule out a scenario where a counterparty refinances the super-senior debt and buys out Sberbank's stake.
On June 6, the High Commercial Court in Zagreb endorsed the settlement agreement, which envisages the establishment of a new Agrokor concern held by the creditors, in which the largest individual shareholder will be Russia's Sberbank with a 39.2% stake.
Along with Sberbank, Agrokor's new owners will be bond holders with a 24.9% stake, local financial institutions will own 15.3%, Russia's VTB bank 7.5%, while suppliers will hold 4.7%.
Agrokor, which employs some 60,000 people in the region, has been undergoing restructuring led by a court-appointed crisis manager under Croatia's special law on companies of systemic importance passed in April 2017 with the aim of shielding the Croatian economy from big corporate bankruptcies.
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