The consortium selling a majority stake in Balkans retailer Mercator has said it has received two bids for the shares.
The sellers, which include brewer Pivovarna Union and a number of banks, confirmed the offers for their combined 53% stake yesterday (13 May).
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Talks with the unnamed bidders are expected to take place after Mercator’s first-quarter results are published tonight.
Reports have named Croatian retailer Agrokor and private-equity firm Mid Europa Partners. Neither company returned a request for comment at the time of writing.
Shareholders in Mercator have tried to sell shares in the Slovenian retailer since 2008. The latest consortium agreed in December to try to offload the 53% stake.
The most recent high-profile attempt to buy into Mercator happened in 2011. That March, Agrokor indicated it would be interested in buying the over 23% of Mercator owned by Slovenian brewer Pivovarna Lasko. Months later, Lasko teamed up with other Mercator shareholders to jointly sell a 50.03% stake.
That October, Agrokor reportedly placed a bid for the shares but, a month later, the management of Mercator pulled its support for talks to sell the company to the Croatian firm after a dispute over whether the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Finance Corp. were involved in the bid. Management also reportedly prevented Agrokor from performing due diligence, given the firm was its biggest competitor in the region.
Two months later, talks were then frozen after the CEO of Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), one of the 12 parties looking to sell their combined stake, resigned, giving no reason for his departure.
In February last year, Agrokor dropped its bid, saying it had failed to agree on the terms of a deal.
Mercator has stores across the Balkans. Earlier this year, it quit Albania and is looking to pull out of the Bulgarian market by the end of next month. It wants to focus on its core markets.
