Sberbank files criminal complaint against Todorić for concealing financial data

Russian Sberbank has filed a criminal complaint against the still current majority owner of Agrokor, Ivica Todorić, Zagreb's Jutarnji list reports, Patria news agency relays.

As early as the end of May, the first deputy chairman of Sberbank's management board, Maxim Poletayev, said they were considering a lawsuit against the Todorić family because they, as creditors, had been concealing the true data on the state of Agrokor's finances.

From sources close to the top of the investigation into Agrokor, Jutarnji list reporters learned that the basis of Sberbank's lawsuit is the last 100 million euros in loans that the Russians approved in March this year, that is, at a time when Agrokor's major liquidity problems were already very well known to the financial and wider public.

That loan was approved by the Russians, as stated by the president of Sberbank's management board for Croatia, Mario Henjak, “in the function of stabilising the situation”, and of the 100 million, three-quarters went to paying suppliers, 21 million to tax obligations, and 4 million for employee salaries. The Russians estimate that Todorić tricked them into granting that loan by presenting incomplete, i.e., unrealistic balance sheets.

 

Today, Sberbank is very dissatisfied because those “stabilisation” 100 million euros did not receive the so-called seniority status, i.e., priority in collection. That issue is, one could say, the key point of dispute between the Croatian government and the extraordinary commissioner for Agrokor on one side, and Sberbank on the other.

Sberbank refused to comment on the information about the criminal complaint.

According to Jutarnji list's findings, the Russians' criminal complaint is just one of the major legal problems that Ivica Todorić, members of his family, and other responsible persons from the Agrokor system will face.