Miroljub Aleksić, President of "Alco Group" – now is the time for procurement of stocks

At the time when majority of companies in Serbia fight insolvency, there are systems without debts that spend their free funds on procurement of stocks on the Belgrade Stock Exchange. Miroljub Aleksić, the President of "Alco group - Amasis", the sixth most successful system in Serbia (the first is "Telenor", while the third is "Delta sistem"), has bought nearly 25% of stocks of “Alfaplam” for about 2.4m EUR and about 3% of stocks of Privredna Banka Beograde for about 300,000 EUR over the last 45 days. He has been buying the stocks through enterprises that are the members of the group, which encompasses 15 profitable companies that registered about 45m EUR worth of profit in 2007.

He is not that famous in the public, but almost everybody heard of the companies he runs – chocolate factories "Pionir" and "Hissar", hotel "Izvor" in Aranđelovac, "Tornik" on Zlatibor mountain…

Why do you buy stocks on the Belgrade Stock Exchange?

At the time of the crisis, when foreign investors are leaving the market and the stock exchange is in constant decline, procurement of stocks can be a good investment. The prices of stocks are at very low level at the moment, and my opinion is that there is a possibility that the prices will reach their absolute minimum in the second half of the year. The recovery will take three years. All those who can endure for so long, who have surplus funds and are willing to take chances, have the opportunity to earn more nowadays than they could earn by saving. The condition is that they have regular estimates.

What do you intend to do with "Alfaplam"?

"Amasis", a member of "Alco group", has bought 24.3% of stocks of "Alfaplam", and that is where we are going to stop. We have invited several companies to buy the stocks in order to increase our ownership share. We will speak to the management of "Alfa" about expansion of product portfolio because, in addition to rationalization and consolidation of the company, we need to think about further development in spite of the crisis. Besides these motives, there is another one: "Alco group" is the owner of "Koštana", footwear factory, which is situated next to "Alfaplam". "Alfaplam" needs space for further development and expansion, and that is what we are going to get from "Koštana", which stretches at 20,000 square meters.

You have also bought stocks of Privredna Banka Beograd?

Yes. We have bought about 3% of stocks because we think that the prices of stocks of most banks - AIK, Agrobanka, Jubmes, etc. – are unrealistically low, and they will, probably, be even lower. We entered Privredna Banka Beograd as a minor investor and by counting on healthy assets and good market position of the bank. Simply, you get dividend and ownership by procuring the stocks and, if nothing else, we can always sell these stocks.

Do you intend to buy stocks of some other companies?

There are several banks and enterprises whose stocks we find interesting. However, we can not be present everywhere. Funds must be kept for current operations and because of the possible risk of impossibility of collection of debts. We will make dispersion, that is, a portfolio, and then we will see what is valuable and which chances we should take. You must remember that we are not an investment, but production group. We have no intention of selling our companies, but only reorganizing, strengthening and regionally expanding them.

Do you expect drop in profit?

It is for sure that the profit is not going to grow. We expect drop in demand, purchasing power and standards and volume of production. Our most important task at the moment is to reduce the risk from loss and to save the company. This year we plan to invest 20m EUR, complete the investment cycles and concentrate on consolidation. We hope that we will succeed. The reason for moderate optimism lies in the fact that we were careful and rationalized all our costs on time, so that we have no debts at the moment.

The companies run by Miroljub Aleksić

"Pionir" (Subotica, Belgrade, Paraćin, Temerin), "Hissar" (Prokuplje), "Tipoplastika" (Gornji Milanovac), hotel "Izvor" (Aranđelovac), hotel Sloboda (Šabac), hotel Tornik (Zlatibor), hotel Master (Novi Sad), hotel "Park" (Vrnjačka Banja), "Cobex export import" (Belgrade), "Amasis" (Belgrade), "Naš stan" (Belgrade), "Koštana" (Vranje), FOS (Surdulica), "Autopromet" (Niš), "Intersilver" (Belgrade), "Jugotehna (Belgrade), "A Broker" (Belgrade).

(The text is taken from “Blic Novac” of March 28th, 2009)