Minister of State Property, Goran Marić, and CEO of the Slovenian company for bank claims management, Imre Balogh, signed an agreement on sale of claims against Cimos. The agreement regulates the Cimos old debt towards Riječka Bank, which was now taken over by the Croatian Agency for Deposit Insurance and Bank Rehabilitation (DAB), for which Slovenia will pay EUR 7 million.

The Slovenian Cimos was recently sold to an Italian investment fund, Palladio Finanziaria, for a symbolic amount of EUR 110,000 but with strings attached, including payment of Cimos debt exceeding EUR 110 million and fresh capital for the troubled company.

The takeover took many months to negotiate, and among major problems were the new owners’ guarantees for claims of employees and the Cimos debt to RiBa of EUR 40 million. This debt was taken over by the DAB, which in turn sued Cimos.

Croatia and Slovenia reached an agreement securing the future for three Cimos factories in Croatia with a total of 1,200 employees, after months of negotiations on government level. Minister Marić announced that there will be no layoffs, and that the three factories will continue operating. Marić and the Slovenian Minister Zdravko Počivalšek, who was also at the signing, said that there are no job guarantees for any company dealing with production, although Cimos’ market is currently strong. Počivalšek also praised cooperation with Croatia, saying that the trade volume between the two countries exceeded EUR 3.5 billion, Croatia is the fourth biggest Slovenian trading partner, and that the Slovenian investors invested EUR 1.5 billion in Croatia while Croatian investors invested a further billion EUR in Slovenia. Počivalšek also believes that there is plenty of room to expand and extend this cooperation.