Croatian food-to-retail consortium Agrokor is planning to sell the Jamnica water bottling company to Coca-Cola.
Sources told Croatia’s T-Portal that the two sides have already entered into negotiations, which are stuck on the asking price. Allegedly, Agrokor is seeking 15 times Jamnica’s EBITDA or HRK 5.9 billion (€793 million).
However, if the current value of the company on the stock exchange is taken into account, Jamnica is worth only HRK 2.85 billion (€383 million).
Another source, this time from Agrokor, claims that the company is asking HRK 6 billion (€800 million) for Jamnica, but Coca-Cola is offering a maximum of HRK 3.75 billion (€500 million), which is in line with the average value of takeovers in the industry.
Neither Coca-Cola and Agrokor have not commented on the news.
It is worth noting that Jamnica has long-term liabilities of HRK 65.6 million (€8.82 million), of which HRK 21.9 million are loans and HRK 43.7 million are deferred tax liabilities. However, the short-term liabilities are a bigger problem. The ones that should be paid within one year total HRK 1.01 billion.
Jamnica is also burdened with guarantees for €840 million in Agrokor loans.
The Croatian bottling company has a concession for the Saint Jana source that, in the case of sale, would be given to Coca-Cola.
Agrokor owns 76.6% of the shares of Jamnica, while the second largest owner is the Croatian state with 5.5%.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up for ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
