Agrokor

Agrokor d.d.

Type	Joint-stock company
Industry	Food and soft drinks, retail
Founded	1976
Founder	Ivica Todorić
Headquarters	Zagreb, Croatia
Area served	Southeast Europe
Key people	Ivica Todorić (CEO)
Revenue	€3.947 billion (2013)[1][2] €7.019 billion (2014)[3]
Operating income	€270.34 million (2013)
Profit	€4.58 million (2013)[1][2]
Total assets	€4.332 billion (2013)[1]
Total equity	€2.390 billion (2013)[1]
Number of employees	34,964 (2013)[1] c. 60,000 (2014)[3]
Divisions	Retail Group, Food Group, Business Group
Subsidiaries	Konzum (81%) Ledo (79%) Jamnica (80%)
Website	http://www.agrokor.hr

Agrokor moved into Cibona Tower on 4 January 2000 where it currently occupies almost all of the floors of the skyscraper.

Agrokor (Croatian pronunciation: [âɡrokoːr]) is the largest retail joint-stock company in Croatia. Originally founded in 1976 as a company producing flowers and flower seedlings, it greatly expanded their operations in the following decades by acquiring a number of large companies in Croatia and Southeast Europe. The Agrokor group had an annual sales revenue of EUR 4.6 billion in 2010.^[4] This made Agrokor the biggest company in Croatia in terms of sales revenue and placed it 18th in Deloitte's annual list of the 500 biggest Central European companies.^[4]

History

Founded as a private firm for the production of flowers and flower seedlings in 1976. By 1977, business was expanded by new programs: import and export of cereals, oil crops, fruit and vegetables begin to flourish, with a significant increase in turnover and profits. In 1989 the joint-stock company Agrokor was registered. The Agrokor Group was registered in 1977. In 2000, Agrokor opened the largest distribution center in Croatia the region. Logistics and distribution center in Dugopolje opened in 2010. The most modern winery in the region worth €20 million was opened at Belje in 2011. First biogas facility was opened in Grades in 2012.^[5]

Acquisitions

Agrokor's core businesses are the production and distribution of food and drinks and retail, and over the years the group acquired several large Croatian companies in those sectors:

• Jamnica - the largest water bottling company in Croatia, established in the 1830s and acquired by Agrokor in 1992.
• Zvijezda - the largest cooking oil and margarine factory in the country, established in 1916 by Samuel David Alexander and acquired in 1993.
• Konzum - the largest supermarket chain in the country which operates over 600 stores in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. Originally founded as "Unikonzum" in 1957, the company was acquired by Agrokor in 1994
• Ledo - the largest ice cream and frozen food manufacturer in Croatia, established in 1976 and acquired in 1994.
• PIK Vrbovec - the largest meat manufacturer in the country, acquired in 2005.
• Belje - the largest agricultural company in the country, acquired in 2005.
• Agrolaguna - winemaking, olive growing and cattle farming company acquired in 2005.
• Tisak - the largest chain of newsstands in the country and the biggest retailer of newspapers and tobacco products. Agrokor acquired a 54 percent majority stake in Tisak in 2007.

In recent years, Agrokor also acquired or founded a number of companies in the region, including the Serbian ice cream manufacturer Frikom, water bottling companies Sarajevski kiseljak (in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Fonyodi (in Hungary) and others.

Several of Agrokor's Croatian subsidiaries are listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) and Ledo is included in its official share index CROBEX as of September 2010.^[6]

For approaching international capital markets, Agrokor had to receive a rating by a rating agency as this is a must to give potential investors a benchmark. Without the ratings of Standard & Poor's and Moody's, Agrokor could not have issued two major bonds (one at the end of 2009 about 400 million, one in 2011 about 150 million).^[7] In April 2012, Standard & Poor’s also revised the outlook on Agrokor's ‘B’ rating to positive from stable.^[8]

Agrokor had to be considered by the Croatian market regulator Croatian Competition Agency (Croatian: Agencija za zaštitu tržišnog natjecanja, AZTN) for some of its acquisitions. The most recent example is a request for approval of acquisition of Mercator where Agrokor will have to shut down some retail locations in Croatia.^[9][10]

As of 2011, Agrokor is planning to take over Mercator, which is the biggest retail chain not just in Slovenia, but also throughout the Balkans, with over a 2000 stores. In June 2014, Agrokor finalised the acquisition of a 80.75% stake in Mercator.^[11]

On June 27th, Agrokor acquired the majority stake of Poslovni sistem Mercator and became its majority owner. The total value of the transaction amounts to EUR 544m, out of which EUR 324m are for the acquisition of 100 per cent of shares, EUR 200m will be used for deleveraging Mercator's financial position and EUR 20m for working capital requirements of Mercator's operations. ^[12]

Controversies

Some of Agrokor's acquisitions of the state owned companies were being investigated by Croatian authorities as illegal or inadequately transparent.^[13] Close to the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, Ivica Todorić supposedly secured number of exclusive to him privatisation opportunities in return for kickbacks, common practice during Croatian privatization processes of the 1990s, also known as Croatian privatization controversy. ^{[14] [15]}

See Also

• Croatian privatization controversy
• Economy of Croatia
• Franjo Tuđman

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Agrokor.

• Agrokor.hr - Official website