October 9 (SeeNews) - Russia's Sberbank has refused to comment on the results of a recent audit revealing losses and negative capital in top units of Croatian concern Agrokor - a major debtor of the bank - in contrast with positive figures reported earlier.
"For the time being, we do not comment on this matter", a spokesperson for Sberbank said in an e-mailed response to a SeeNews enquiry over the weekend.
Agrokor owes the Russian bank some 1.1 billion euro ($1.3 billion). The deputy chairman of the bank's management board, Maxim Poletaev, told Russian media last week that the Croatian government, which had taken control of the ailing concern to prevent its collapse, should service the debt of the food-to-retail group.
Croatia's prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, however, reiterated that Croatia has not nationalised Agrokor. In his most recent statement, issued by the government press office over the weekend, Plenkovic repeated that the government simply introduced a law enabling the appointment of an extraordinary administration for a limited period of time.
"Nationalisation is something different," Plenkovic added.
The results of the most recent audit of Agrokor's key nine companies conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and made public on Thursday revealed huge discrepancies between the financial results for 2015 reported earlier and the audited figures. Inflated value of assets, understated claims towards group members, over-estimated inventory and undocumented costs were some of the reasons for the discrepancies. The audit also showed that the nine companies recorded an aggregate consolidated net loss of 3.3 billion kuna ($515.9 million/439.7 million euro) in 2016 and that their aggregate capital stood at a negative 2.4 billion kuna at the end of 2016, or 13.4 billion kuna ($2.1 billion/1.8 billion euro) below the figure reported at the end of 2015.
Agrokor owner, Ivica Todoric, has however sided with Sberbank. In a post on his personal blog, Todoric directly addressed Plenkovic, saying: "It is true that your government has nationalised a private company - based on the unconstitutional and unlawful act your government voted into force; as the owner of the company I am prevented from realising my property rights."
Agrokor has been in financial turmoil since January when Moody's downgraded its corporate family rating of Croatia's largest privately-held concern. Following Moody's decision, Agrokor pulled out of a syndicated loan deal it had struck with several international lenders, which sent the price of its bonds on international markets into a downward spiral.
In April, the Croatian parliament adopted a law allowing the government to appoint temporary administrators in companies of systemic importance to lead a restructuring process at the request of the company's creditors or the debtor itself.