There is no guarantee that indebted Croatian food group Agrokor can be saved, the restructuring expert appointed to rescue the business said on Tuesday, describing the challenge as one of the toughest in his career.
“Time is of the essence. The situation is pretty acute,” Antonio Alvarez III told a news conference to unveil his team.
“There is no guarantee we will succeed. This is one of the most challenging situations that we are going to face.”
Agrokor, Croatia’s largest private company and the biggest food producer and retailer in the Balkans with some 60,000 employees, has struck a deal with six lenders led by Russia’s Sberbank and VTB to freeze repayments and get an unspecified cash injection.
As part of that deal, Alvarez, who works for consultants Alvarez&Marsal, has been tasked with stabilising the company and proposing a restructuring plan.
“I’m appointed by the company and have no allegiance to any stakeholder … I view my fundamental role as helping different groups to come to an agreement to save the business. I have a track record of having preserved lots of jobs and supplier relationships,” he told reporters.
“There is no guarantee we will be able to do all that here, but we’re going to try,” he added.
Agrokor’s debt, according to company data from last September, is 45 billion kuna ($6.5 billion), or six times its equity.
($1 = 6.9786 kuna) (Reporting by Igor Ilic; Editing by Mark Potter)
Source: Reuters
Consumer healthcare firm Haleon has appointed Tate & Lyle executive Dawn Allen as its new chief financial officer, effective 1 November 2024. Allen will succeed Tobias Hestler, who has decided to step down from the role, citing a long-term health condition, the company said.
The group said that the bottling line, which adds 6,500 square metres to the existing 60,700-square-metre site, is the next necessary stage in the company’s international development. The leading brand in Campari Group’s global sales, demand for the Italian bitter apéritif has grown by 500% in the last decade.
The partnership will see Coca-Cola adopt new technology to foster innovation and productivity globally. Through the deal, Coca-Cola has made a $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities.
