Ante Ramljak to run Agrokor – Court prohibits executive procedures against Croatian company

The Commercial Court of Zagreb opened an extraordinary management procedure in the Agrokor concern and appointed Ante Ramljak as extraordinary commissioner. The court announced that a decision had been adopted simultaneously forbidding initiating and conducting civil, executive and management procedures against Agrokor and its 24 subsidiaries, among which are Konzum, Ledo, Jamnica, Zvijezda and Tisak.

The appointment of the extraordinary commissioner followed the Government's proposition of Ramljak at an extraordinary session, based on Lex Agrokor, i.e. the Law on Extraordinary Management Procedure in Commercial Companies of Systematic Importance for the State, adopted by the Parliament last week.

– Mister Ramljak has the necessary references and the necessary experience. When we were considering the profile of the person needed, we were looking for someone familiar with the participants in the Croatian economy, someone who knows who's who and what the mutual relations are like. The person appointed by the Government to the position needs to possess institutional memory – said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Ramljak said that they had a demanding and difficult task ahead of them.

– We are looking at a battle for Agrokor, for the employees, suppliers, creditors... the struggle not to have this situation affect the entirety of the economy of Croatia or even the region. There's really not a lot of time, there's only little. Starting today, I will be working on it around the clock, trying to lower the tensions together with my team, to regain the trust of the suppliers, creditors, banks and to normalize the operations. This is the first priority – he said.

He added that he would have meeting with suppliers and banks the very same day, trying everything in his power to secure salary payments by Easter.

– If we manage to do this for both the suppliers and the workers, especially for small farms, we are looking at a long period of an all-encompassing restructuring of the group. It will take time and be intensive, but I believe no one is operating under the illusion that this can happen overnight. It will be an intensive process over the next 12 months. My aim is to regain the seriously shaken trust of the suppliers and calm things down... – Ramljak said.

Ante Ramljak was the head of the management of the Croatian office of the investment and consulting company CAIB from 1997 till 2007, being in charge of mergers and takeovers in Croatia, B&H and Slovenia. In 2007, he started working at Borislav Skegro's Quaestus. In early September 2007, he took over the running of Quaestus financial consulting, where he stayed until 2012, when he took over the energy sector at the Center for Monitoring Business Activities in the Energy Sector and Investments as a board member.

Fortenova grupa d.d.

Trgovački sud Zagreb

Vlada Republike Hrvatske

Konzum Zagreb

LEDO d.d. Zagreb

JAMNICA d.d. Zagreb

ZVIJEZDA ZAGREB

Tisak d.d. Zagreb

Ante Ramljak

Lex Agrokor

Law on Extraordinary Management Procedure in Commercial Companies of Systematic Importance for the State of Croatia

Andrej Plenkovic

CAIB

Quaestus

Borislav Skegro