Several days ago, MK Group, owned by businessman Miodrag Kostic, submitted its bid for taking over the Sabac-based company, Victoria Group which has amassed a huge debt.
As the 021 website, based in Novi Sad, reports, the two sides do share similar views about the company’s destiny, so MK Group is expected to acquire Victoria Group by the year end. Victoria Group owns several big companies like Sojaprotein, the cooking oil factory Mladost from Sid, the Veterinary Institute from Subotica and others.
The main problem that has been plaguing Victora Group is a declining price of crops on global stock exchanges. The company has been waiting for the situation to improve, but the global prices of wheat, maize, soy, and barley have been constantly low for the past five years.
When, two months ago, banks wanted to re-consolidate the company’s debts and asked Victoria Group to pay loans that were due, the hope that the company would recover vanished. Soon, the idea to sell it came about as a solution to the growing debt problem.
On the other hand, MK Group is selling its sugar plants following the EU abolishing the sugar quotas on 7th October this year. The owner of MK Group, Miodrag Kostic estimated that German, French and Austrian sugar plants will boost their production in response to the higher sugar quotas and start exporting cheaper sugar, derived from sugar beet, to the non-EU countries.
MK Group is very interested to get into cooking oil business, and is planning to buy Victoria Group even if it doesn’t sell its sugar plants.
(B92, 20.11.2017)
http://www.b92.net/biz/vesti/agro-biz.php?yyyy=2017&mm=11&dd=20&nav_id=1327380
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