From the meeting of the Management Board of the Association of Small Shareholders

The Management Board of the Association of Small Shareholders met in order to decide on the voting method to be used at the General Assembly of Podravka's Shareholders, scheduled for 14th July.

The Management Board of the Association of Small Shareholders met in order to decide on the voting method to be used at the General Assembly of Podravka’s Shareholders, scheduled for 14th July. The meeting was also attended by the President of the Management Board, Darko Marinac, and Nevenka Cerovsky, member of the Department for Financial Development, who outlined the results of the 1999 business year and commented on the most interesting current topic in Podravka at the moment – the process of restructuring “Danica”.

Podravka’s CEO discussed the company’s performance over the previous year which had been published in the “Shareholders’ Gazette”. Considering the situation we live in, Podravka performed quite well. At the group level, the results were positive. The remaining figures are the results of separate divisions of the group, and the reason for them being shown in this way is due to the Supervisory Board’s decision to complete the financial process of restructuring in Podravka by the end of last year, which means that in the future there will be no provisions for restructuring or reserves for restructuring, and no other expenses outside our regular business operations. This was also the case last year; the reserves enabled us to restructure without straining our current business operations this year. I personally think that this was a good decision of the Supervisory Board (although this is not directly my responsibility), since it enables Podravka to look towards the future more calmly, to stop dwelling on the past, to focus more on new products and markets, and on growth and development.

The members of the Management Board of the Shareholders’ Association also wanted to know about the future direction of Danica d.o.o. Darko Marinac said that Podravka was helping Danica to improve its business operations and was also looking for a strategic partner who would offer Danica what Podravka could not provide, since it has never been extensively interested or focused on Danica. At the moment, Podravka’s Management Board has not yet reached a final decision on Danica’s fate. However, there are two ways out of Danica’s present difficult situation, according to Marinac. Plan A involves a strategic partner, and the sale of Danica is attracting a great deal of interest since there are plenty of good features about Podravka’s meat industry: the products, certificates of quality, and the highly-developed technological production level. Plan B proposes a high-quality restructuring of Danica, which means achieving lower labour costs, cheaper financing, stronger marketing: in short, turning Danica into Gavrilović. “Plan B is less likely to be implemented at the moment,” Darko Marinac concluded. After these explanations of last year’s business performance and the course of Danica’s restructuring, the members of the Management Board of Podravka’s Small Shareholders Association discussed proposals for the decisions which are planned to be passed on 14th July by the Shareholders’ General Assembly, as suggested by the Management and the Supervisory Board. Unanimous support was given to all the proposals for decisions: from the approval of the financial reports for the 1999 business year, through covering Podravka’s losses from the reserves, to appointing the President of the Association, Marko Ečimović, to the post of Member of Podravka’s Supervisory Board.