Is Luka Rajić buying 'Bosnalijek'?

The Government of the Federation of BiH today gave its consent to the Privatization Plan and Financial Plan of the Federation Privatization Agency (APF) for 2015 for 14 companies, among which is the strongest Bosnian pharmaceutical company „Bosnalijek“, writes the news agency Patria.

Incidentally, after HADEN became the majority owner of „Bosnalijek“, the Federation Government still holds a 20 percent share of the stock. It has been known for some time that Haden assumed the role of majority owner after a suspicious purchase of shares from the International Investment Fund as the owner of 29.95 percent of the shares, which is the subject of an investigation by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH.

That something is suspicious is also indicated by the fact that in joint-stock companies, 30 percent of shares is the threshold after which a company must announce a public purchase of the remaining shares of the enterprise.

Interestingly, the FBiH Government did not wait for the Prosecutor's Office to give a final verdict on the investigation it is conducting. Namely, since the story about the investigation emerged, Bosnalijek's shares on the stock exchange have started to fall, and it is unclear how the Government wants to sell the shares at the lowest price.

Nevertheless, as our source reveals, it seems a new „arranged“ sale is on the horizon, suspected to be to Luka Rajić, a well-known Croatian businessman and former owner of the LURA Group, who is entering Haden.

- His two men have already been installed in Bosnalijek and control the entire logistics of this company. It seems he is entering Haden, the former shell into which unknown investors injected the money used for the suspicious purchase of Bosnalijek – says our source from Bosnalijek.

Suspicion about this Government decision is also cast by the fact that the decision was made because the companies in the previous period had negative business results and recorded an evident decline in capital.

Bosnalijek is certainly not in such a situation, as at the end of last year they boasted total sales revenue of a record 120 million KM, representing a growth of 21 percent compared to the previous year. According to preliminary results, net profit in 2014 reached a high of 10 million KM, with a return on equity of seven percent.