Bosnian grocery retailer Tropic has reportedly submitted a bid for the takeover of Slovenian supermarket chain Mercator in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The news was revealed by a source to news portal Nezavisne Novine, and subsequently confirmed to the local daily by a company spokesperson, who did not want to discuss the details of the bid.
Tropic is one of the leading privately-owned retailers in the Balkan country, with 55 stores and 2,000 employees.
The company took a major step forward in 2014 when it acquired 39 Maxi supermarkets and Tempo hypermarkets from Belgian retailer Delhaize.
If the deal is completed, it would mean that no foreign grocery retailers will be operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Agrokor Issues
The news comes only weeks after Mercator started the rebranding of Konzum stores in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which it hopes to complete by the end of September.
According to the report of the extraordinary administration of the Agrokor Group, Konzum operated with a loss of €5.9 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first five months of this year. As a result of this performance, the decision was made to recapitalise the company with BAM 68.7 million (€35.1 million), while securing liquidity with BAM 29.7 million (€15.1 million) of fresh money.
© 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
