"Istrabenz" filed for bankruptcy – problems not to be felt in Serbia

The Management of Slovenian conglomerate “Istrabenz”, the parts of which are Belgrade-based "Štark" and "Grand kafa", has officially declared the company as insolvent. The Management has failed to reach the agreement on recovery from the crisis with the creditors and three largest stockholders, and the Supervisory Board of "Istrabenz" already declared the company as insolvent on Tuesday (March 31st, 2009) when the Executive Director, Igor Bavčar, offered his resignation.

The President of the Management of "Droga Kolinska" group, Slobodan Vučićević, said that the financial problems of "Istrabenz" holding, the majority stockholder of "Kolinska", would not be felt in Serbia.

According to his words, Serbian companies should be at their ease because "Droga Kolinska" is independent of “Istrabenz” and registers good business results.

According to the valid laws, the company’s management has the time until April 30th to make the draft plan for financial restructuring. According to the website of the Ljubljana Stock Exchange, the number of creditors who have taken the stocks of the conglomerate in exchange for the repayment of loans has been increased in the meantime, after Probanka and Hypo Alpe Adria Bank did that.

Hypo Bank has invited "Istrabenz" to cover the difference between the values of the stocks it took and the company’s obligations towards the bank, which – along with the interests – reache the amount of 6.3m EUR.

The first bank that took the stocks of "Istrabenz" was Unicredit Bank Slovenia, which took over 8% of stocks of market chain "Mercator" and small packages of stocks of power company "Petrol" and company "Sava", while the largest Slovenian bank NLB took over 6% "Istrabenz’s" package of stocks in "Petrol".