Croatian culture

Ljubljana/Zagreb – President Borut Pahor will be the guest of honour at the traditional Sinjska Alka equestrian competition in the Croatian town of Sinj this Sunday upon invitation of his Croatian counterpart Zoran Milanović. Pahor will be the first foreign statesman in this capacity at the tournament, the president’s office has announced.

Ljubljana – Dnevnik reports on Tuesday that after the Slovenian retailer Mercator had been transformed from a joint stock company into a limited liability company at the beginning of the month, the procedure has been launched in the region to merge certain business functions of Mercator and the Croatian retail chain of Konzum.

Ljubljana/Zagreb – Croatia’s Fortenova Group increased its share in Slovenian retail group Mercator from 88.1% to 89.11% during a takeover bid for the remaining 724,764 Mercator shares Fortenova does not already own. A total of 154 Mercator shareholders accepted Fortenova’s offer of EUR 36 per share in cash.

Zagreb – The Croatian group Fortenova and Slovenian retailer Mercator have signed a contract under which the latter will get a EUR 385 million loan to restructure its debt to creditor banks, in a move that further enables the transfer of the Slovenian retailer from the bankrupt former owner Agrokor to Fortenova.

Zagreb - Fortenova Group and Nomad Foods Limited sign a purchase agreement for the Frozen Foods Business Group, with a transaction value of 615 million.

Belgrade – Serbia’s competition protection authority has cleared the transfer of Slovenian retailer Mercator to Croatian group Fortenova, thus clearing yet another hurdle for the step that follows the bankruptcy of Fortenova’s predecessor Agrokor. Fortenova expects the transfer to be completed at the end of the month.

Ljubljana – The retail group Mercator saw its sales revenue rise by 2.1% to EUR 1.6 billion in the first nine months compared to the same period last year, but the group operated with a net loss, which climbed to EUR 69m, shows a report released on Thursday.

The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS, announced a protest for Monday under the slogan "Female journalists do not kneel/PM keep the promise", urging Vucic to fire Gasic immediately.