March 21 (SeeNews) - Russian lender Sberbank is in talks to sell its 44% stake in Croatia's largest privately-owned company Fortenova, the successor to the collapsed food-to-retail concern Agrokor, to Hungarian asset manager Indotek, according to Croatan media reports.
Due diligence has started and the transaction is expected to take place in the next few weeks, daily Vecernji List reported on Sunday.
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Fortenova did not respond to an email from SeeNews seeking information about the negotiations with Indotek by the time this story was published.
Sberbank became the largest individual shareholder of the Fortenova Group with a 39.2% stake in April 2019 after the business operations of troubled Agrokor were transferred to the then newly formed Fortenova Group under a deal with creditors.
Last year, the Russian bank raised its stake in Fortenova to 44% by swapping a 18.53% stake in Slovenian retailer Mercator for shares in Fortenova.
Indotek Group is owned by Hungarian and American shareholders. Its founder, chief executive officer and majority shareholder is Hungarian businessman Daniel Jellinek. Its assets under management are invested mainly in real estate and non-performing corporate loans secured by real estate.
At the begnning of this month, the Croatian unit of Sberbank, Sberbank d.d., was sold to local bank Hrvatska Postanska Banka (HPB), under extraordinary procedure of the central resolution authority within the EU Banking Union, related to the sanctions against Moscow imposed by the EU over the Russian invasion on Ukraine.
The European Central Bank warned back then that Sberbank's subsidiaries in Croatia and Slovenia are failing or likely to fail due to worsened liquidity as a result of the reputational impact of Russia's assault on Ukraine.
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