Agrokor inks Mercator takeover agreement Friday?

A consortium of Mercator's shareholders should sign an agreement Thursday to sell a majority package of shares of this retailer to Croatia's Agrokor, Slovenian and Croatian media have reported.
According to Hina news agency, Agrokor has only announced that this group as well as "the consortium of Mercator's shareholders have confirmed that all prerequisites for the implementation of the Agreement are created and that, as a result, the process of closing this transaction has already started and is expected to finish within the next few days."

This information was also confirmed by the Pivara Lasko brewery which is part of the consortium of Mercator's shareholders.

People at Pivara Lasko remind that the consortium inked an agreement with Agrokor on 14 June 2013 to sell a total of 53 percent of shares in Mercator Business System as well as an annex to that agreement on 28 February 2014. The consortium of shareholders and the buyer agreed in writing on June 24th to close the transaction on 27 June 2014, Pivara Lasko said in a release.

The agreement signed 14 June 2013 stipulated that Agrokor would pay EUR 240 million for the given stake. Slovenian media are announcing today that the agreed share price is EUR 86, meaning that Agrokor should set aside EUR 172 million for the majority stake in Mercator.

The estimates are that the new company would generate annual revenues of EUR 7 billion and employ 60,000 people, thus becoming the largest retailer in central and eastern Europe.

Poslovni sistem Mercator d.d. Ljubljana

Mercator-S d.o.o Beograd

Fortenova grupa d.d.

RATTAN HAUS

Pivovarna Laško d.d. Laško

Mercator

Pivara Lasko

Mercator sale

sale of Mercator