16 Feb 2009

Gorenje Most Popular Among Foreigners

Gorenje, the Velenje-based home appliance manufacturer, is the leading Slovenian company in terms of foreign shareholding. The latest available data from the NLB bank show 17.59% of Gorenje shares are owned by foreigners.
Etol, the flavourings and essential oils manufacturer, follows with 15.33% foreign ownership and Mercator, Slovenia's biggest grocer, ranks third with 12.28%, followed by drug company Krka with 8.11% foreign shareholding. Compared to the year before, the share of foreign shareholders in Gorenje increased by 7.5 percentage points. Available information shows its biggest foreign shareholder is Home Products Europe (7.63%), followed by Raiffeisen Central Bank Austria (3.7%), EECF (2.92%) and Unicredit Bank Austria (0.77%). EECF and Erste Group, have increased their shares the most this year, while Raiffeisen Central Bank Austria and Hypo Alpe Adria Bank are the foreign owners that have sold the most of their shares. The share of foreign shareholders in Krka has changed little for the past year, the biggest being New World Fund (2.6%), Unicredit Bank Austria (0.97%), American Funds Insurance Series (0.52%), Raiffeisen Central Bank (0.26%) and Pictet&CIE Banquiers (0.26%). Pictet&CIE Banquiers, New World Fund, BGI Frontier Markets Fund (under Barclay's Bank) and the Swedish East Capital Balkan Fund have increased their shares the most, while the biggest foreign sellers of Krka were Unicredit Bank Austria, AXA World Funds, Dexia Equities and GP Morgan Funds. The share of foreign owners in Mercator dropped somewhat at the annual level. One of the biggest is Serbian holding Rodic, which acquired a 4.6% stake in the Slovenian retailer when it sold its retail division to Mercator in 2006. Nearly 48% of Mercator is now being offered for sale by Infond Holding and beverage group Pivovarna Lasko. Some information has it documents for the purchase of Mercator have been taken out by between 10 and 15 bidders, while only the Serbian Delta Holding has confirmed it has submitted a non-binding offer. A while ago, the Austrian Raishop Holding expressed interest in acquiring Infond Holding's 23% stake in the Slovenian grocer, but the deal failed. The Competition Protection Office initially declined to sanction the sale, but then the buyer backed out after the onset of the financial crisis. Following the four companies in terms of the share of foreign shareholders are Pivovarna Lasko (7.42%), NKMB bank (5.75%), reinsurer Sava Re (5.48%), insurer Zavarovalnica Triglav (4.61%), food and pasta maker Zito (3.85%) and telco Telekom Slovenije (3.42%).