Retail chains in debt: Mercator and Agrokor selling business premises

 

Slovenia's largest retail chain Mercator, owned since 2014 by Croatian tycoon Ivica Todorić, owner of Agrokor, intends to sell a number of important retail centers in the coming months, Patria reports.

69 shopping centers in Slovenia and the Balkans will be sold and leased back for twenty years. For two years now, Mercator has been selling its centers through a monetization system, leasing premises for a specified period to foreign investors.

Monetization reduces debt and provides funds for new investments. In the past year alone, Mercator had to pay 827 million euros in long-term liabilities and 72 million euros in short-term loans over nine months.

The over-indebtedness of Todorić's parent company Agrokor is also a particular problem, which a year and a half ago had 3.5 billion euros in debt. Agrokor recently sold four Konzum shopping centers to a South African investment fund for 66 million euros.

A major problem for Agrokor are the urgent obligations to banks due to reprogrammed loans. Agrokor is a pillar of the Croatian economy, as it is based on the sale of domestic products both in Croatia and in the region.