CVC Capital Partners is allegedly interested in Slovenia’s largest retailer Mercator, reports regional news portal Seebiz.
The US-based investment fund has also in the past been mentioned as a possible buyer for Mercator.
Mercator, which is owned by troubled Croatian food-to-retail consortium Agrokor, ended 2016 with a loss of HRK 72.7 million (€9.78 million), while revenues dipped 4.5% to HRK 2.5 billion (€336.3 million). As well as Slovenia, Mercator is also present in the Adria region (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro).
In a related development, Agrokor’s suppliers in Croatia have given a 29 May deadline to the retailer to fulfill five requests in order for them to continue further delivery of goods.
At issue are about HRK 3.1 billion (€417.1 million) of reported liabilities to Agrokor creditors, including many suppliers.
According to T-Portal, the suppliers stated that although steps have been taken by the company to address these liabilities, to date their concerns have not been met.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine
