Agrokor

Agrokor d.d.

Type	Private
Industry	Food and soft drinks, retail
Founded	1976
Founder(s)	Ivica Todorić
Headquarters	Zagreb, Croatia
Area served	Southeast Europe
Key people	Ivica Todorić (CEO)
Revenue	EUR 3.634 billion (2011)[1]
Operating income	EUR 0.751 billion (2011)
Employees	40,000 (2008)[2]
Divisions	Retail Group, Food Group, Business Group
Subsidiaries	Konzum (81%) Ledo (79%) Jamnica (80%)
Website	agrokor.hr

Agrokor (Croatian pronunciation: [âɡrokoːr]) is the largest privately held 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 currently has almost 40,000 employees,^[2] and had an annual sales revenue of EUR 3.6 billion in 2009.^[3] 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.^[3]

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 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.
• 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, watter bottling companies Sarajevski kiseljak (in Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Fonyodi (in Hungary) and others. The company is aiming for a takeover a Slovenian Mercator, which is the biggest retail chain not just in Slovenia, but also throughout the Balkan region, with over a 2000 stores.

Several of Agrokor's Croatian subsidiaries are listed on the Zagreb Stock Exchange (ZSE) and two of these (Ledo and Konzum) are included in its official share index CROBEX as of September 2010.^[4]

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)^[5]. In April 2012, Standard & Poor’s also revised the outlook on Agrokor's ‘B’ rating to positive from stable.^[6]

Controversies

Some of the Agrokor's acquisitions of the state owned companies were or still are being investigated by Croatian authorities as illegal or inadequately transparent.

Agrokor is officially considered by the Croatian market regulator Agencija za zaštitu tržišnog natjecanja (AZTN) to enjoy privileged position on Croatian market that does not serve the interests of both Croatian businesses and Croatian consumers.^[7] The regulators will delay any legal action before 2013 when Croatia is expected to join EU. ^{[citation needed]}

References

External links

• Official website