Ljubljana, 22 June (STA) - Sava shareholders have opted for selling the holding's 37.6% stake in the bank Gorenjska Banka to Serbian counterpart AIK Banka, which already holds 33%. The EUR 43m for the bank has already been deposited in a fiduciary account. The shareholders also okayed a capital injection for Sava.
The shareholders' meeting on Friday did not take a vote on a proposal to sell the stake to Sava's secured creditors and owners for EUR 43.5m or EUR 298 per share.
Sava's largest secured creditors under a 2016 compulsory settlement list are Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH), the affiliated KAD fund and the Luxembourg-based York Fund, which are also Sava's major owners.
SSH and KAD hold a combined 45.13% and the York fund has 41.74% of Sava shares.
SSH boss Lidija Glavina told the press after the meeting that the acquisition funds had already been deposited in a fiduciary account at the Central Securities Clearing Corporation (KDD). The KDD also holds all the cancellation deeds for the secured creditors.
"When the transaction is completed - after the the Securities Market Agency approves the deal or the legal deadline expires, which will allow AIK Banka to submit a takeover bid once again, the funds will be transferred to the accounts of secured creditors and the KDD will transfer the shares," said Glavina.
The existing option contract expires at the end of June 2019, which means that AIK Banka has nearly a year to meet all the conditions of the deal.
The AIK Banka welcomed the decision made by Sava shareholders in a press release, adding that it had complete trust in procedures being conducted by Slovenian regulators.
The bank also said that it had followed Slovenian law consistently throughout the procedures and would continue to do so in the future.
The meeting also backed the proposal from the KAD fund to recapitalise Sava with a EUR 4.7m capital injection to enable it to acquire Hoteli Bernardin, the company running several hotels on the coast.
An earlier similar proposal by the Sava management, involving a EUR 12.5m capital injection, was voted down by KAD and SSH in April.
In the meantime, Sava, Gorenjska Banka and the Bank Assets Management Company (BAMC) agreed to take over a 66% interest in Hoteli Bernardin that comes from the receivership of NFD Holding.
Once the proceedings related to the receivership are completed, Sava will have increased its stake in Hoteli Bernardin to 39.5%, which means it will have to publish a takeover bid for remaining shares.
Today, Sava shareholders were also briefed on the audited annual report for Sava and the audited consolidated report for the Sava group for 2017, endorsing the proposal to allocate net profit to offset for the loss transferred from the past.
They also granted discharge of liability to the management and supervisory board.