July 4 (SeeNews) - Creditors of Croatia's Agrokor holding 80.20% of the concern's total claims voted to uphold the settlement deal on Wednesday at a voting hearing held in Zagreb, Agrokor said.
The settlement was backed by creditors holding a total of 27.08 billion kuna ($4.3 billion/3.7 billion euro) of the concern's claims amounting to a total 33.76 billion kuna, Agrokor said in a statement.
"Today is really a great day for Agrokor. The aim of the extraordinary administration was to reach an agreement that would be upheld by most of the creditors within the statutory deadline and we succeeded," Fabris Perusko, the concern's receiver, is quoted as saying.
It is a great success that in only 14 months the threaten of a collapse of the largest Croatian company, which would have had devastating consequences on the economy in Croatia and in the region, was avoided, Perusko added.
The creditors of Agrokor have been negotiating a settlement deal for some six months, while the deadline for its adoption was July 10.
For the settlement to become effective creditors holding 66.7% of claims had to support it.
The High Commercial Court in Zagreb is now expected to validate the settlement, following which the implementation process is planned to last between three and four months.
The settlement 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.
Bond holders will have a 24.9% stake, local financial institutions 15.3%, Russia's VTB bank 7.5%, while suppliers will hold 4.7%. Among the Croatian suppliers of Agrokor, diversified conglomerate Adris Grupa [ZSE:ADRS] will have the largest share of the new concern with a 1.4% stake.
Agrokor, which employs some 60,000 people in the region, has been undergoing restructuring led by a court-appointed crisis administrator under a special law on companies of systemic importance passed in April last year, with the aim of shielding the country's economy from big corporate bankruptcies.
More than 5,700 creditors reported nearly 58 billion kuna in claims against Agrokor in that period.
(1 euro=7.39149 kuna)