June 17 (SeeNews) - Slovenian retailer Mercator [LJE:MELR] said on Tuesday that the last required conditions for full and unconditional implementation of its financial restructuring have been completed.
Mercator said in a bourse filing that thus its financial restructuring and refinancing has become fully effective.
Earlier this month, the Slovenian retailer said it has signed a comprehensive contract for the financial restructuring of the group with its creditor banks and financial lessors.
Last June, Croatian privately-held concern Agrokor signed a sale and purchase agreement with a consortium of shareholders that is selling 53.1% of Mercator, making a cash offer for the stake. The successful refinancing of Mercator’s outstanding debt was one of the conditions for the completion of the transaction.
In February, Slovenia's Pivovarna Lasko, one of Mercator’s shareholders, said Agrokor amended its deal with the consortium, lowering its bid to 86 euro ($116.5902) per Mercator share from the initial 120 euro. Pivovarna Lasko also said at the time the validity of the sale and purchase agreement has been extended through June 30.
Agrokor has so far secured anti-trust clearance for the deal – which would create one of the largest retail companies in Central and Eastern Europe with around 7.0 billion euro in annual revenues and over 60,000 employees - in Slovenia and conditional nods in Serbia and in Croatia where it will have to downsize its merged operations.
Based in Zagreb, Agrokor is the largest company in Croatia, with operations in food and beverages, as well as food retailing.
($=0.7376 euro)
Poslovni Sistem Mercator d.d. is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here