Court selling "Vučko" apartments in Jahorina due to multi-million debt, BiH state repaid loan

(Patria) - Apartments of the "Vučko" hotel complex in Jahorina will be sold at auction to settle over 12 million marks owed by the company "B&B Vučko" to the Investment-Development Bank of Republika Srpska for loan repayment obtained based on falsified documents.

As reported by The Center for Investigative Journalism, the District Commercial Court in East Sarajevo postponed the first sale of apartments in the "Vučko" hotel complex in Jahorina, scheduled to collect the loan debt of the company "B&B Vučko" to the Investment-Development Bank of RS (IRBRs). The sale includes 43 apartments valued by the court expert between 48,000 and 340,000 KM.

Buyers appeared at the hearing, but the auction was postponed because, in the meantime, Bijeljina lawyer Miloš Stevanović, through his company "Standard Prva," bought a total of 180 million KM in debt to the IRB, including the debt of "B&B Vučko." The court was informed of this eight days before the scheduled sale, which is why judge Minja Mirvić postponed the hearing to change the enforcement creditor.

In 2012, "B&B Vučko" received a loan of six million marks as part of financing investment projects of companies in RS from the European Investment Bank (EIB) funds. Loan documentation shows that the IRB provided incorrect data to the EIB regarding the purpose and use of this loan.

Despite this, the IRB claims it made no mistakes in granting the loan. In May 2022, they confirmed to The Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN) that "B&B Vučko," with interest, owes almost 12 million marks, but did not respond about the debt status in 2023 and 2024. The bank also ignores CIN's inquiries about the debt status of other companies that received EIB funds.

Bosnia and Herzegovina repaid the loan

Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina repaid this loan because the state was a signatory to the agreement with the EIB for a 50 million euro loan from 2009. The document stipulated that the funds would be used to finance investment projects in the territory of RS through the IRBRs Development and Employment Fund.

IRBRs used that money to finance projects of 16 companies, some of which, including "B&B Vučko," did not use the money for its intended purpose nor regularly repay the loan.

At the end of 2022, BiH owed the EIB 12.1 million marks for the project of financing companies through IRBRs. IRBRs and the BiH Ministry of Finance have not yet provided CIN with data on the current debt status.

The company "B&B Vučko" is managed by father and son Milomir and Aleksandar Prović, who built the "Vučko" hotel-apartment complex in Jahorina with investors from Serbia and Russia. "What is wrong with you or anyone else then? The state is repaying and the state will collect this," Aleksandar Prović commented to CIN in 2023 about the situation his business found itself in.

Forgeries, defrauded partners, and suspended investigation

We remind you that CIN revealed how forgeries, defrauded partners, and multi-million debts have accompanied the construction of the "Vučko" complex for decades. Municipal authorities allowed the Provićs to appropriate state land in Jahorina, and entity authorities granted them multi-million loans.

CIN journalists discovered that the IRB loan to "B&B Vučko" was approved based on falsified documentation regarding the pledging of real estate in Jahorina. This was real estate of the company "Club Aparthotel Vučko," which the Provićs shared with investors – Mirko Tica from Serbia and Dragan Đordan from Russia. They never agreed to pledge the real estate for the loan, but in 2012, the Provićs submitted a forged decision of the "Club Aparthotel Vučko" company's Assembly to the IRB, which mortgaged its apartments. These properties have now ended up in a court sale.

"How did they do it, on what basis, under which assembly? They behave completely confidently, arrogantly, unscrupulously," Dragan Đordan, an investor who has been fighting for years to recover the 13 million marks he invested in the construction of apartments in the "Vučko" complex, told CIN.

In the transcript of the Assembly where investors refuted the pledging of real estate, Mirko Tica stated: "The procedure followed when establishing the mortgage was illegal and suggests criminal activity. As a person, I cannot comprehend this."

According to the documentation submitted by the Provićs to the IRB, the real estate in Jahorina was mortgaged by Ana Kovačević, Aleksandar Prović's sister, who was the director of "Club Aparthotel Vučko" at the time. She signed documents claiming that the co-owners of the company had approved the pledging of assets at an extraordinary assembly in March 2012 via "conference call." However, none of the co-owners attended this assembly nor signed the company's consent for pledging assets. It turned out that Kovačević had prepared this consent five months earlier and attached it to the loan application.

Notary Gordana Gerdijan, who certified the mortgage, told CIN: "How was I supposed to know that these were false documents, signed, with a seal and everything, if the bank had their credit committee and references there?"

At that time, in 2012, the decision on granting the loan was made by the Prime Minister of RS and President of the Credit Committee, Aleksandar Džombić, a family friend of the Provićs. He had also approved a five million KM IRB loan for them in 2009, urging the then-director of the IRB via messages to urgently approve the loan for "B&B Vučko."

The District Public Prosecutor's Office in East Sarajevo suspended the investigation against the Provićs for falsifying documentation for the IRB loan. Prosecutor Halida Vrabac told CIN that she "simply doubts that the IRB would have allowed the loan if falsified documents were involved."

Nevertheless, the apartments that investors never agreed to pledge for the loan have ended up in a court sale due to the debt of the company "B&B Vučko" to IRBRs.